A High Court sitting in Isabo, Abeokuta, Ogun State, has sentenced a man, Oluwaseyi Salako, to death for killing a minor, Ope Ogunseye, and severing his body parts for ritual purposes.
Four of Salako’s accomplices, including Akeem Shotayo, Akeem Akinbowale and Kazeem Oloyede, bagged two to seven years jail terms, respectively.
Salako was sentenced to death by Justice Abiodun Akinyemi for killing the child in a gruesome manner on March 9, 2013 and severing his head, palms and private parts, which he packed in a polythene bag.
In the suit marked AB/22C/15 filed against the convicts by the Chief State Counsel, Mrs O.A Lawal, all the four, except Salako, the first accused person, who was charged for murder of the boy, were charged for being in possession of human skull and remains.
Lawal had brought no fewer than six witnesses to the court, including the mother of the victim, to testify against the accused persons over the unlawful murder of the minor and the dismemberment of his body.
In his judgment, Justice Adeyemi sentenced Salako, who he said could not provide a reasonable evidence on how he got the severed head and palms of the 7-year-old minor, to death for killing the boy.
“I found the first accused guilty and convict him accordingly for the human skull and parts that were found in his possession, because he could not provide any reasonable evidence of who gave him the severed parts of the deceased. Therefore, I found him guilty of murder and the punishment for murder is death,” the judge
said.
He, however, sentenced the second accused person, Shotayo, to seven years imprisonment; the third accused person, Akinbowale, to two years imprisonment; and the fourth accused person, Oloyede, to five years imprisonment with hard labour, for being in possession of human skulls and other
body parts.
Justice Akinyemi said that all the accused persons were human parts dealers and should be punished for not regarding human lives by selling their body parts to their clients, who use them in the preparation of charms.
Earlier in his defence, counsel to Salako and the third accused person, A.H Adesanya, pleaded with the court to temper justice with mercy over the death sentence on Salako.
Adesanya said that it did not appear that Salako killed the victim, since there was no reasonable evidence that he was the one who killed the minor.
Also, in his defence, the counsel to the second and fourth accused persons, Adebiyi Ogundeyi, pleaded with the court not to sentence Shotayo to prison, adding that since the case began in court, he had lost two of his
children.
Ogundeyi also pleaded with the court not to jail Oloyede, who had also lost his sister in the course of the case.
Salako was said to have lured the child to a place, where he gruesomely killed him at about 10am on March 9, 2013, while the minor was running an errand for his mother, Tawa Ogunseye.
He was said to have severed the boy’s head and dismembered other parts of his body. Salako then allegedly packed the severed body parts into a polythene bag, which he took to Shotayo as part of the ingredients for making money rituals for his clients.
Upon investigation by the police, Shotayo was arrested, and later confessed to the police that Salako brought the minor’s body parts to him in his house. Akinbowale and Oloyede were also linked to the boy’s murder and they were
later arrested.
