On Monday, Justice Ibrahim Adebayo Yusuf of the Kwara State High Court in Ilorin found three of the eight accused defendants guilty and sentenced them to death by hanging for the June 2, 2021, sexual assault and murder of Olajide Blessing Omowumi, a 24-year-old student at the University of Ilorin.
The three defendants were found guilty by Justice Yusuf of culpable homicide punishable by death, as well as conspiracy to commit robbery and murder. They should be hanged till they die.
The state government filed an action against the defendants (case number KWS/33c/c/2021) with 11 counts of crimes, including armed robbery, illegal gun possession, and sexual assault.
Salman Jawondo, the prosecuting attorney and a former Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, spoke to journalists following the court session and provided a summary of the ruling.
“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 conspiracy to murder. They were accordingly sentenced to death. That’s maximum. The court has no discretion to exercise, by virtue of provision of the armed robbery Act, it’s death sentence,” Jawondo said. “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 phone. They changed her password, through the instrumentality of the fourth and fifth defendants, who are experts in computer manipulation, and 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 a 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 young men with age range of 19 and 23. It’s quite unfortunate. And that tells us that we have to work on our future in this country”, he stressed.
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 are all suspected of being involved.
On June 2, 2021, the Kwara State Police Command announced the suspected rape and murder of a 300-level University of Ilorin student in her apartment in the Tanke district of the Ilorin city.
The deceased, a student at the Agricultural Science Department from the Oke-Opin community in the Ekiti Local Council of Kwara State, was claimed to have been staying with her elder sister, Dr Dupe Shittu, at the Tanke area till her death.
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