Three students of a tertiary institution in Kwara State (name withheld) have been convicted by Justice Adenike Akinpelu of the Kwara State High Court on Monday for conspiring together and gang raping a cousin of one of them.
Vanguard reliably gathered that the court found them guilty on a two-count charge of criminal conspiracy and rape of the victim (name withheld) in the Adangba area of Ilọrin, the Kwara State capital.
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The convicts, Omotosho Yahaya, 23, who is the cousin of the victim, Mustapha Ahmed, 23, and 22-year-old Mustapha Ridwan, are students at a tertiary institution in the state.
The first defendant (Omotosho) invited his two friends to join him in the act while the victim was in the room.
They were sentenced to five years imprisonment for rape and two years for criminal conspiracy.
The sentences, which include an additional N50,000 fine, run concurrently.
Justice Akinpelu, while delivering her judgment, held that “The defendants’ confessional statements are clear, unambiguous, and equivocal, contrary to their counsel’s argument”.
According to her, “No woman in her right sense will consent to and allow three men to have sex with her.
“Exhibit 1, (a plank) recovered from the scene of the crime attested to the fact that the victim was threatened and raped in addition to other tests she received at a government hospital”, she submitted.
Though desirable, Akinpelu added that “it is not in all cases that the absence of the victim in court due to certain circumstances can be relied upon to argue a case”.
She also described their “claims that she owed them money as a fairy tale” and pronounced them “guilty as charged”.
In her response to the judgment, Prosecutor, Muslimat Suleiman, a principal counsel from the Kwara State Ministry of Justice, said the judge did justice to the case. She evaluated all the evidence before her.
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For his part, the Director Office of the Public Defender, Ishola Saka Olofere, who defended the first and second defendants, described the judgment as a “commendable one even though it was against us, looking at the professionalism exhibited by the judge.”
