A local herb seller alongside a student, herbalists, and four others have been sentenced to years of imprisonment for trading in human body parts for rituals.
The High Court in Ilorin, Kogi State found the accused person guilty of criminal conspiracy, possession of 11 human skulls, 11 lower jawbones, human hair and 29 pieces of bones exhumed from burial grounds in Ilorin.
The Chief Judge of Kwara State, Justice Durosinloun Kawu, who held that the activities of the convicts were despicable and shameful sentenced the first accused, Azeez Yakubu, to 15 years imprisonment with N100,000 fine each on three counts to run concurrently.
The judge further sentenced the other accused persons, Aishat Yinusa, Lukman Saka, AbdulGaniyu Bamidele, Ahmed Yahaya, Saliu Ayinde and Abdurasak Babamale, to 10years imprisonment with N100,000 fine each on two counts, which also will run concurrently.
The convicts earlier in the trial put up a defense that they were tortured by operatives of SARS police in other to extract the information contained in their written confessional statements.
The chief judge overruled the submission as unreasonable and inconsistent and also held that contrary to convicts, the evidence which was retrieved from them were parts of human beings and not of monkey or gorilla.
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According to reports, Dr Kazeem Ibrahim, the head of pathology department of the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital was called as prosecution witness who verified that the parts recovered from the convicts were human parts.
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