An Effurun High Court has sentenced a native doctor, Philip Itoje to 10 years imprisonment with hard labour, having found him guilty of the one count charge of kidnapping of one Mrs. Christiana Eruotor, wife of a Professor with the state own University, DELSU.
The Court held that from the totality of the circumstantial evidence before it, there are irresistible facts that points that the accused person was guilty.
Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.The 54 years accused, from Kokori town of Ethiope East Local Government Area of Delta State who also masquerade himself as a “Prophet” of “God” was arrested by Security Operatives after Mrs. Eruotor, a retired Chartered Accountant with the Delta State University, Abraka, went missing. She left home on the 7th day of August, 2012 after informing her husband that she was traveling to London for the 2012 Olympic Games and since then has not returned back home neither has she been heard from.
The accused was picked up by the Police and later handed over to men of the Department of State Security Service for further investigations after it was established through Mrs. Eruotor’s call data log that there was frequent phone contacts between the accused and the victim from 2nd to 7th of August, 2012. It was established after a call data analysis that the accused called the victim 5 times on the morning she went missing. However, he denied the allegations as he told men of the DSS that the last time he remembered to have had any form of contact with Mrs. Eruotor was in June, 2012 which further aroused the suspicion of Security Operatives as the call data log indicated otherwise.
It was also discovered that the victim made large withdrawals from her accounts between 2nd to 5th of August to the tune of 3.6million naira out of the 4million naira gratuity just paid to into her account by her former employee.
Prosecution called 5 witnesses including a star witness, Christiana Anyadike was testified that the accused was notorious in hypnotizing his victims as she has been a victim for 4 years. She told the Court that she remembered that the victim was always coming to visit the native doctor who pretended to be a “Prophet” She also told the Court while giving evidence that the accused suddenly became rich on the 4th of August, a day after Mrs. Eruotor withdrew 3.2million from her account, an evidence that was not challenged during trial.
The Honourable Attorney General who was satisfied with the judgment explained that the convict was tried under the Criminal Code which was the law applicable at the time of the offence was committed.
