An Asaba High Court has sentenced two persons to a total of 113 years in jail with hard labour over kidnapping and armed robbery offences.
The convicted kidnappers are David Erutere, 31, a native of Ekrakra Village, Ethiope East Local Government of Delta State, and Sunday Omamuzo Ukaikwo, a native of Olomoro, Isoko South Local Government.
The court sentenced them having found them guilty of the five-count charge of conspiracy to commit a felony to wit, armed robbery contrary to Section 6 (b) and punishable under Section (1) a of the Robbery and Fire Arms (Special Provision) Act Cap R 11 Volume 14, Laws of the Federation, 2004. Other offences include armed robbery and demanding property with menaces.
Prosecution had told the court that Erutere and Omamuzo conspired, kidnapped and robbed Irikefe Edafe and Egwu Johnbull of their valuables, including a Pathfinder jeep, GSM phones, laptop, wedding rings and cash on two different dates in June 2011 at Delta Palace Road, Warri and Obiaruku respectively and demanded for a ransom of N50 million from their families before they could be released.
The court in its judgment sentenced the first accused person, Erutere, to 45 years in jail for conspiracy to commit armed robbery while the two accused persons got seven years imprisonment each for conspiracy to commit kidnapping, three years each for demanding property with menace, and another 10 years each for kidnapping.
The second accuse person, Ukaikwo, who claimed to be a farmer, was slammed with 25 years imprisonment for the same offence of armed robbery.
Omamuzo was arrested by men of the State Security Service (SSS) when he fell into the trap set for him at the point of picking the agreed ransom and he later took the security agents to the house of the 2nd accused person where he too was arrested and later charged to court.