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An ex-convict, Azeez Tajudeen, has been remanded in a correctional centre for allegedly r*ping a 6-year-old girl to death in the Ayobo area of Lagos State.
Punch reports that the
20-year-old who was arraigned before the
Yaba Magistrate court on Friday, December 8, lured his victim with biscuits to
an uncompleted building where he removed her clothes and r*ped her four times
with his hands on her mouth until she passed out from pain and suffocation.
During his trial, the police
prosecutor, Chekwube Okeh, said not knowing what to do when he found out that
the girl was no longer breathing, the accused left her corpse there n3ked and
fled. Okeh told the court that the defendant committed the crime on September
9, 2023, around 4 pm, at Moricas Street, in the Ayobo area of Lagos State.
According to the police, the
mother of the deceased on the day of the incident, returned from her hawking
business but could not find her daughter. She raised the alarm and people
joined her in the search for the child. It was learnt that someone later
reported that the girl was last seen with Tajudeen, who used to come to her
house to fix stools for her.
The mother told the police that
when Tajudeen was called and questioned, he initially denied knowing the girl’s
whereabouts, but after further interrogation, he confessed to having carried
her to an uncompleted building after buying her biscuits.
“I slept with her three to four
times and she fainted. I did not know that she would die, so I left her there
and ran away.”
He was arrested by the Ayobo
police officers who he led to the uncompleted building where the girl’s corpse
was recovered n3ked with her clothes scattered on the floor. The apprentice carpenter confessed that he
had planned to sleep with the child but did not plan to kill her. He further
stated in court that he is an ex-convict who got out of custody in August 2023.
According to Okeh, the offence
contravenes Section 222 and is punishable under Section 223 of the Criminal
Laws of Lagos State, Nigeria, 2015.
“That
you, Azeez Tajudeen, on September 9, 2023, around 4 pm at Ayobo, Lagos State,
in the Lagos Magisterial District did unlawfully defile and kill one (name
withheld) aged eight years old and thereby committed an offence contrary to
Section 222 and punishable under Section 223 of the Criminal Law State, 2015.”
The defendant’s plea was
however not taken. The magistrate, Balogun, ordered that Tajudeen be remanded
immediately to prison custody and the case file duplicated and sent to the DPP
for legal advice.
She adjourned the case till
January 22, 2024, for legal advice from the DPP.
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