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Justice Ibrahim Adebayo Yusuf of the Kwara state High Court, Ilorin, has convicted and sentenced three of the eight accused persons alleged to have raped and murdered a 24-year-old student of the University of Ilorin, Olajide Blessing Omowumi, on June 2, 2021, to death by hanging.
The eight accused persons were brought before the court by the Kwara State government in suit No KWS/33c/c/2021 on an 11-count charges bordering on armed robbery, illegal possession of firearms and rape.
The three convicts were found guilty of culpable homicide punishable with death, conspiracy to commit robbery and conspiracy to murder.
Speaking on the judgement, the prosecution counsel and former Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Salman Jawondo, who spoke with journalists after the court session, gave summary of the court judgement.
“The first, second and third defendants who are the main culprits were found guilty of culpable homicide punishable with death, conspiracy to commit robbery and cospiracy to murder. They were accordingly sentenced to death. That’s maximum. There’s no discretion for the court to exercise by virtue of provision of the armed robbery Act, it’s death. So also by virtue of section 221 of the penal code, it’s death sentence for culpable homicide. So, they were accordingly sentenced to death.
“Although, the third defendant, who was also convicted of rape was sentenced to life imprisonment, but it’s neither here nor there. When somebody is condemned, the life imprisonment does not ameliorate anything.
“With respect to the fourth and fifth defendants, they were found guilty of conspiracy to steal and stealing of money in the bank account of the deceased. You know, after killing her, they took her ATM card, Sim card and her phone. They changed her password, through instrumentality of the fourth and fifth defendants, who are experts in computer manipulation, collected some money through transfer, totalling about N149,000. They were convicted for conspiracy and stealing/theft. They were accordingly sentenced to three years imprisonment to run concurrently. For conspiracy, one year, for main offence three years, commencing from the date of their arrest. They’ve spent about one and half years already in custody.
“The other three: sixth, seventh and eighth escaped by whiskers. They are very lucky. If you look at their involvement, they only assisted to dispose of property stolen.
“The irony of it all is that all those involved are very young men of 19, 23 etc. It’s quite unfortunate. And that tells that we have to work on our future in this country”, he said.
The suspects; Abdulazeez Ismail, Ajala Moses Oluwatimileyin (aka Jacklord), Oyeyemi Timileyin Omogbolahan, Abdulkarim Shuaib (aka Easy), Kareem Oshioyemi Rasheed (Rashworld), Abdullateef Abdulrahman, Daud Bashir Adebayo (aka Bashman) and Akande Taiye Oladoja,
It could be recalled that the Kwara State Police Command had confirmed the suspected rape and murder of a 300 Level student of the University of Ilorin in her residence located at Tanke area of the Ilorin metropolis on June 2, 2021.
The deceased said to be staying with her elder sister, Dr. Dupe Shittu, at Tanke area until her death was a student of the Agricultural Science Department from Oke-Opin community in the Ekiti Local Government Area of Kwara state.
Three of the defendants, Abdulazeez Ismail, Ajala Moses Oluwatimileyin (aka Jacklord) and Oyeyemi Timileyin Omogbolahan, were said to have conspired among themselves, “to rob one Olajide Gloria Blessing Omowumi also known as “Wumi” (now deceased) of her Samsung Galaxy A2 Core handset and carted away other items, including one black Acer aspire, one series laptop, one Samsung drive, one pink wireless mouse, one white handheld mini sewing machine, one infinix charger and one gold colour win touch tab while armed with offensive weapon including a black wooden pistol gun”.
The prosecution also accused five others of aiding and abetting the receipt of stolen items which include the Samsung Galaxy A2 Core handset and some other computer gadgets being proceeds of armed robbery.
The charge also accused Abdulazeez Ismail, Kareem Oshioyemi Rasheed and Abdulkarim Shuaib of stealing a sum of money from the GTB account of the deceased.
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