TheCable

A high court in Akure, Ondo state capital, on Wednesday, sentenced five kidnappers to life imprisonment.

Officers of the state police command had arrested the five men after they kidnapped one Unikiere Adodo, a nurse, at Araromi-Obu Rubber Plantation in 2015.

The convicts, Tosin Adenikinju, Abiodun Olabowale, Omoniyi Akinsoyinu, Olatuyi Igbekele and Daso Oluwasiji, were arraigned on two counts bordering on conspiracy and kidnapping.

While testifying during the trial, Adodo said she was abducted at gunpoint on her way to church in the evening.

”I was ordered not to look at their faces. They said they only wanted to use me to collect money from my employers. I spent two weeks with them before I was released,” she said.

They, however, pleaded not guilty to the charges.

In his ruling, Olusegun Odusola, the presiding judge, said the prosecution proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Odusola sentenced each of them to seven years’ imprisonment on the first count and life imprisonment on the second.

In 2014, Odusola sentenced three men to death by hanging over the kidnapping and murder of an 18-month-old infant identified as Rachael Akingboye.