Court jails clerics over possession of human parts in Kwara

After four years of legal battle, two Islamic clerics in Ilorin, Olaitan Folorunsho Abdulwahab and his father, Suleiman Babatunde Olaitan, have been sentenced to jail over possession of human parts.

The victim of the crime was one Suleiman Saka.

The presiding magistrate, Chief Magistrate Bio Saliu, sentenced Abdulwahab to four years imprisonment while the father bagged four months and N3,000 fine.

The sentence is to run concurrently.

It would be recalled that the convict, Abdulwahab, exhumed the body of his friend five days after he was buried, for ritual purposes.

His father was accused of screening of offender.

They were brought before Magistrate Bio Saliu for criminal conspiracy, criminal trespass and unlawful possession of human parts contrary to sections 97, 342, 219 of Penal Code. The First Information Report (FIR) of the case said one Alhaji Aliyu Baba Alapa of Onilu compound, Oloje, Ilorin reported the matter at ‘G’ Division Police Station.

The police report narrated that the complainant received the information that the grave of his son, Suleiman Saka, who was buried at the family compound in Oloje, was excavated and the corpse exhumed.

The odour of from dismembered body of Saka from the house where it was kept attracted the attention of members of the community who mobilised and conducted a search on the building.

A human head, two hands and two legs of the deceased kept in a plastic bucket and hidden inside the roof were reportedly recovered from the building.

Abdulwahab, Oladimeji, Jelili and Waidi of various addresses were said to have made away with the remaining parts of the deceased’s body in a Honda Accord vehicle.

Olaitan, among other defendants who ran away after the incident was rearrested in Ajuwon, Ogun State.

He was said to have confessed in the course of the investigation to have conspired with other defendants to carry out the act.

The defendants have since their arrest in 2018, been remanded in prison custody.