Court sentences three to death by hanging over rape, murder of UNILORIN undergraduate

Three of the eight accused persons in the rape and murder of a 24-year-old University of Ilorin student, Olajide Blessing Omowumi on June 2, 2021, have been convicted and sentenced by the Kwara state High Court, Ilorin.

While two are to die by hanging, another one was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Court.

The accused persons were brought before the court by the Kwara State government in suit No KWS/33c/c/2021 on 11-count charge bordering on armed robbery, illegal possession of firearms and rape.

In the judgement delivered by Justice Ibrahim Adebayo Yusuf of the Kwara state High Court, Ilorin on Tuesday, the three convicts were found guilty of culpable homicide punishable with death, conspiracy to commit robbery, rape and conspiracy to murder.

The 165-typewritten-page judgement, which got almost the whole court room shedding tears while being read by Justice Yusuf, saw even the judge weeping openly for more than two minutes while recounting the process of how the deceased was raped, leading to her death.

The judge held that the gang had the intention of theft and rape without intention to kill, however, added that their act led to homicide.

Speaking on the judgement, the prosecution counsel and former Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Salman Jawondo, who started the case as Attorney General of Kwara state, concluded it as a private legal practitioner on pro bono service. He resigned to contest in the APC primaries for the 2023 general elections.

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

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“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.

Eight accused persons were brought before the Kwara state High Court, Ilorin on allegations of rape and murder of a 24-year-old University of Ilorin student, Olajide Blessing Omowumi.

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 can 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.

The defendants were brought before the court by the Kwara State government in suit No KWS/33c/c/2021 on 11-count charge bordering on armed robbery, illegal possession of firearms and rape.

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.