A security guard at the palace was shot in the head during the kidnap of the traditional ruler of Iba Town, Oba Goriola Oseni, a witness told the court on Friday.
Sergeant Ademo Rahim, the third prosecution witness in the ongoing trial of the four suspects in the alleged kidnap of the traditional told a Lagos State High Court, sitting in Igbosere, that in the course of his investigation, he discovered that the Security guard at the Palace one Sunday Okanlawon was shot in the head, but that he doesn’t know how a motorcycle rider Joseph Okeke died.
The defendants are standing trial on an eight-count charge bordering on conspiracy, murder, attempted murder, robbery, armed robbery, felony and kidnapping preferred against them by the Lagos State Government.
The defendants are Duba Furejo, Ododowo Isaiah, Reuben Anthony and Yerin Fresh.
They were first arraigned on October 24, 2016.
The charge stated that two deceased persons were murdered by the defendants during the alleged kidnap of the Oba.
The witness said that when he got to the scene of the crime he saw pool of blood at two different posts, one at the Palace entrance gate and the other at the Security post of the Palace.
Rahim who is the investigating Police officer attached to Ojo Divisional Headquarter was led in evidence by the Director of Public Prosecution DPP, Mrs Idowu Alakija.
While testifying, the witness said that when he visited the crime scene the next day on July 17, the place was deserted as there was nobody to attend to him.
The witness who was testifying before Justice Oluwatoyin Taiwo, said that he visited the crime scene after the Monarch’ son Kazeem Oseni reported a case of kidnap, murder and armed robbery, and after the DPO and the DCO visited the place on the day of the incident, the case was now assigned to me and I swung into action the next day.
” Before I got there the deceased bodies have been taken to Badagry General Hospital Mortuary. It was the local police at Iba Town that removed the bodies and deposited it at the mortuary. He said.
During cross examination by the first and second defendants lawyer Chief Selowei Baidi, Rahim who said he has been in the Nigerian Police Force for 13 years said that he took the family members of the deceased persons to the Badagry Mortuary to identify the bodies, after they asked the DPO to release the bodies for burial.
He also said that he followed the deceased persons family to Lagos State University Hospital LASUTH, for the postmortem and the pathologist issued death certificate to the families of the deceased persons.
The third defendant’s lawyer Mr J. O. Egwuaroje aligned himself with the questions of Baidi while the fourth defendant lawyer, Anthony Onwueze, said he had no question for the witness.
At the last adjourned date Oba Goriola Oseni and his son prince Kazeem Oseni, who were the first and second prosecution witnesses in the case, had told the court that his family paid two ransoms worth N15.1millon to the monarch’s abductors.
However Justice Taiwo adjourned the case to December 16, for continuation of trial.
