Court jails Islamic clerics over possession of human parts

A Kwara State Magistrate’s Court sitting in Ilorin has sentenced two Islamic clerics, Folorunsho Abdulwahab and his father, Babatunde Folorunso, to various jail terms for being in possession of human parts.

While Abdulwahab was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, his father, Babatunde, bagged four months imprisonment and a fine of N3,000.

Both the father and the son were convicted for being in possession of human parts of the son’s friend, Mallam Suleiman Saka, whose body was secretly exhumed a few days after his burial.

According to the prosecution, the convict, Abdulwahab, who was a friend to Saka and was one of the clerics that participated in his burial, exhumed the body of the victim five days after he was buried for ritual purposes in 2018.

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

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, the prosecution revealed.

The case had been in court until the judgement was delivered on Thursday.

The presiding Magistrate, Mr Bio Saliu, who is also a Chief Magistrate convicted the two for the offence adding that while the son was caught with the decomposing parts of the victim, the father who is also an Islamic cleric screened his son who was an offender in the crime.

Punch