BY AYO ESAN
JUSTICE Muhammad Tukur of State High Court, Kaduna, on Tuesday, convicted and sentenced the duo of Maryam Muhammad Jallo and Rukaiya Muhammad Jallo to 10 years imprisonment for offences bordering on criminal breach of trust.
The pair who are blood sisters were prosecuted on an amended one-count charge by the Kaduna Zonal office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
The charge reads, “That you, Maryam Jallo and Rukaiya Jallo, on the 30th day of March, 2019, in Kaduna, within the judicial division of this Honourable Court, while being entrusted with the sum of One Million Seven Hundred Thousand Naira ( N1,700,000) only by one Alhaji Badamasi Shanono and Adio Bukar Hashia for medical treatment of one Usman Umar, dishonestly misappropriated same and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 293 of the Kaduna State Penal Code Law, 2017 and punishable under Section 294 of the Same Law.”
The defendants pleaded ‘guilty’ to the amended charge preferred against them.
Consequently, Justice Tukur convicted and sentenced them to 10 years imprisonment with an option of N100,000 fine (One Hundred Thousand Naira).
One Alhaji Badamasi Shanono alleged in a petition that, in 2019, Jamal Health Foundation, owned by the convicts, used its social media platform in soliciting for donations and contributions from donors for the medical expenses of one Usman Umar, who had been bedridden for over two years, having suffered partial paralysis.
Shanon claimed he donated N1million to the foundation, while N700,000 was donated by a woman.
He further alledged that Jamal Foundation refused to hand over the funds to the patient but converted it to personal use.
