Police parade 9 suspects in Abia

Abia State Police Command has paraded nine suspected criminals for various crimes, including kidnapping, rape, vandalism, car snatching and being in possesssion of arms and ammunition.

Commissioner of Police in the state, Mr Leye Oyebade, disclosed this on Thursday while parading the suspects at the police headquarters, Umuahia.

He  said on October 18, the operatives of  Arochukwu Division arrested three persons, Chima (35); Immaculate (25) and Uche (20) (surnames withheld) for defiling a 12-year-old girl at Amuvi Arochukwu.

He regretted that the suspects who severally took turns in defiling the victim, were arrested, following the alarm raised by the guardian.

While answering questions from journalists,  Chima, in tears, vowed he never raped her, but at a point attempted to, while Uche admitted to the crime, adding that the devil used him to commit the crime.

He disclosed that police from Ndiegoro Division Aba, acting on intelligence gathering on October 15 at Adeze by Market Roadjunction, Aba, recovered one double barrel short gun cut to seize, two locally-made pistols, three lives cartridges and one empty shell from them.

In a related development, the Police Commissioner further revealed that the police in Aba, in collaboration with vigilante group rescued a Ghana-based businessman, who was kidnapped around Enugu/Port Harcourt expressway at Umuikaa junction same day.

On arrest of the suspected car thieves, he said Victor (surname withheld), a student of Caritas University in Enugu State was paraded for stealing a Mercedes Benz 230E car with registration number UMA 134HR, while for vandalism, his command, following the  tip-off, apprehended two suspects, Dike and George (surnames withheld) in Isuochi, who specialise in vandalising streetlights installations within the local government.

He, however, warned group or persons who were in the habit of causing unrest in the state to desist forthwith, as police were prepared for any  protest arising from any quarter, while assuring police’s adequate protection of lives and property during the ember period.