By Oye Chukwujekwu
Delta State High Court sitting at Kwale and presided over by Justice O. Jaloggo-Williams has sentenced eight persons accused of kidnapping the Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly, Monday Igbuya, on May 21, 2009 at Sapele to a total of 104 years imprisonment.
The accused are Godspower Ikoro, Godspower Omoniyi (ex-soldier), Ernest Atteh, John Adapamu, Ife Freedom, Sunday Uba Tiemo, Kemi Koinyang and Isaiah Mumbor.
The eight accused, who were charged to court after their arrest by Security Agents on Charge No S/1c/2010, were later transferred from the Sapele High Court in 2011 to Kwale for trails on a six-count charge of conspiracy to commit a felony to wit, kidnapping, armed robbery and the substantive case of kidnap of Monday Igbuya and demanding with menaces the sum of N100 million as ransom.
Igbuya was subsequently released on May 27, 2009.
The Court in its ruling found all the accused persons guilty on the account of kidnapping and demanding property with menace and sentenced them to 10 years (for kidnapping) in jail each with hard Labour and three years in imprisonment (for demanding N100 million with menaces). They Court further held that the sentences were to run concurrently.
Justice Jaloggo-Williams however discharged them on the count of armed robbery for lack of sufficient evidence by prosecution.
The accused persons were charged under the criminal Code Law Section 364 (I.) & (in.) that prescribed 10 years jail term for Offenders before the Delta House of Assembly enacted Anti-Kidnapping Law, 2016 that now prescribed life imprisonment for Offenders.
