An Abuja High Court at Apo, yesterday, ordered the remand of five men accused of complicity in the abduction and murder of an official of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Sylvester Emefiele.
The court directed that the accused persons, Akinlade Taiwo (41 years), Timothy Abidemi Lekan (30), Saidi Babatunde (47), Banjo Olaniyi (20) and Saliu Afeez (20), should remain at Kuje Prison till January 30, 2014, when their bail application will be heard.
Justice O. A. Musa made the order shortly after the accused persons took turns and pleaded not guilty to a seven-count criminal charge of conspiracy, kidnapping, murder and armed robbery, preferred against them by the Police.
They were said to have kidnapped and murdered Emefiele who was an Electrical and Electronics Technologist, attached to NNPC’s Transformation Office, Corporate Planning and Strategy Division, on September 23, 2012 while he was on a trip to Abuja from Lagos.
Specifically, Police, told the court that the accused persons, hypnotised the deceased, using some fetish charms allegedly provided by one of them, Babatunde, and afterwards, robbed him of his possessions, tied him up in a bush at Giri, Gwagwalada Area Council, Abuja and killed him with a sledge harmer.
Whereas count one of the charge against them bothers on conspiracy to comit culpable homicide, in count two, Taiwo, Lekan, Balogun and others now at large, were accused of kidnapping and killing Emefiele “by tying his hands and legs with rope and used a sledge harmer to hit him to death.”
Among items they allegedly stole from the deceased, included a laptop, three Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) cards, a camera, a mobile telephone set and the sum of N183,000,00.
Babatunde, who until his arrest was said to be resident on Opomalu Street, Illorin, Kwara State, was accused of producing and selling to Taiwo and Lekan “fetish charms and rings,” capable of “causing any natural phenomenon or any disease or epidemic.”
More so, Olaniyi and Afeez, were in count seven, accused of receiving from Taiwo and Lekan, the mobile telephone sets stollen from the deceased.
Meantime, one of the accused, Babatunde, yesterday, claimed he could not understand English, a development that led the court to secure the services of a Yoruba interpreter for him.
Following their plea of innocence to the charge, the prosecutor, Mr Oloye Torugbene, urged the court to fix a date for their trial, even as he vehemently opposed an attempt by the defence lawyer, Mr Olaniyi Oyinloye, to persuade the court to release the accused persons on bail pending the determination of the charge against them.
The prosecutor, maintained that he was only served their bail application yesterday morning while he was already inside court, saying he would need time to study it and respond accordingly.
Consequently, Justice Musa, ordered that the accused persons should be taken to Kuje Prison, just as he adjourned the matter till January 30, 2014.
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