Two men arrested by the Department of State Services, DSS, have been sentenced to death by an Ekiti State High Court after being convicted for the kidnapping of a staff member of the National Youth Service Corps in the state.
The convicts, identified as Ibrahim Abubakar and Abdullahi Abubakar, were found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging, while a third defendant, Usman Abubakar, was discharged after the court held that there was insufficient evidence linking him to the crime.
The case stemmed from the abduction of Omoboade Adesina, a female NYSC staff member, on April 22, 2022. The two convicted men were subsequently arrested and prosecuted by the DSS.
Delivering judgment, the Chief Judge of Ekiti State, Justice Lekan Ogunmoye, sentenced the two defendants to death by hanging and discharged the third defendant.
Justice Ogunmoye also commended the diligence of the DSS prosecutors for proving the case beyond reasonable doubt. He specifically cited the identification parade conducted by the Service and the analysis of call data records during the investigation as key factors that aided the conviction.
The judgment marks another courtroom success for the DSS in its prosecution of violent crimes. It comes on the heels of a death sentence reportedly handed down by a Sokoto High Court against three men convicted of terrorism and cross-border arms proliferation, as well as the conviction of a kidnapper in Kogi State earlier secured by the Service.
The string of successful prosecutions, according to the narrative surrounding the cases, underscores the DSS’s intelligence-driven approach to investigating and prosecuting violent crimes, while reinforcing its commitment to ensuring that perpetrators of kidnapping, terrorism and related offences face the full weight of the law.
Crediblenewsng.com
