The Department of State Services, DSS, has arraigned five men before the Imo State High Court over separate allegations of kidnapping, hostage-taking and unlawful possession of firearms, including the abduction of 20 prospective National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, members.
The defendants were arraigned on Tuesday in two separate cases involving the abduction of prospective corps members travelling to orientation camps and the kidnapping of four other persons in the state.
In the first case, three defendants identified as Usman Aliyu, 25, also known as Chonge; Babangida Aliyu, 21; and Mohammed Ali, 23, popularly known as Smallie Pepper, were accused of participating in the abduction of 20 prospective corps members on Independence Day along the Owerri-Mgbidi-Onitsha Expressway.
The DSS prosecution alleged that the victims, who were travelling from Ibadan to orientation camps in Abia and Akwa Ibom states, were abducted on October 1 and rescued after seven days in captivity, while the defendants, alongside other suspects still at large, were charged with conspiracy to commit hostage-taking under Section 6 of the Imo State Prohibition of Hostage Taking and Related Offences Law No. 4 of 2009, and unlawful possession of three AK-47 rifles, four magazines, a pistol and 81 rounds of live ammunition.
In a separate case, two other defendants, Aminu Haliru, 27, and Tange Ibrahim, 20, also known as Jijji, were accused of kidnapping four persons around Owerri and Mgbidi on October 4, collecting N8 million as ransom for their release, and unlawfully possessing an AK-47 rifle and a pump-action gun, with the prosecution listing N1.8 million as money recovered.
A DSS investigator and the victims were listed as witnesses in both cases filed before the Oru Judicial Division of the Imo State High Court in Mgbidi, as the allegations against the five defendants remain subject to determination by the court amid continued security efforts to tackle kidnapping and armed criminality in the South-East.
