A group of men suspected to be rapists were on Thursday paraded by the Abia State Police Command.
One of the suspect, a 24-year-old man identified as Samuel Okorie, alongside his accomplices, allegedly gang-raped a 65-year-old grandmother and killed her afterwards, at the Ofeme area of the state on October 8, at about 9pm.
Samuel was paraded alongside 24 suspected criminals at the state police command headquarters in Umuahia.
Parading the suspects, the state Commissioner of Police, CP, Leye Oyebade, said that the victim, Anthonia Dike, was returning from a business trip at Jos, when the three hoodlums, who rode on a motorbike, trailed the commercial bus she was traveling in from Okigwe, Imo State to a point along the Ofeme axis of the express road.
“They double-crossed the bus and ordered the passengers out of the bus.
“The robbers then dragged the passengers into a nearby bush, dispossessed them of their wares, cash and other valuables.
“They separated the men from women and had sex with the female passengers, during which they took turns to rape the 65-year-old grandmother.
“Having satisfied their evil sexual desires on the 65-year-old grandmother, and were ready to go, one of them pulled out a gun, pointed it on her middle nose region and pulled the trigger, afterwards, she was butchered for reasons yet to be ascertained.
“The woman died instantly,” Oyebade said.
But the suspect, a commercial tricyclist said he only transported his accomplices to the scene of the incident.
Denying his involvement in the rape and murder, Okorie said, who said he lives at Agiriga area of Okigwe, said he was in the bush waiting for his two friends without knowing that they were raping the women.
“I was not the one that killed the woman, but the two men that I carried on my bike. I am the pilot that carried them, I cannot say that I don’t know what they were doing, but I only took them there and waited for them to finish.
“I did not follow them to rob or kill anybody. The two men I carried, robbed, the people, and killed the women,” he said.
The CP, however, stated that they would be charged to court and prosecuted accordingly.
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