…Wants Magistrate investigated for compromise
The Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC) has called on the Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice, Osun State to ensure that justice is not derailed or perverted in the prosecution of the suspect in the rape of a minor in Ede, Osun State.
It was reported that the victim was a student in the cleric’s Arabic school and that after the cleric was arrested by the Osun State Police command in June, he (suspect) initiated efforts to settle the matter within the family.
After the family rebuffed his settlement efforts, the police perfunctorily charged the cleric with minor offence, excluding the main crime of rape in a bid to provide him a soft landing after apparently compromising the prosecutor as the family suspects.
According to reports, he was ‘arraigned at the Magistrate court sitting in Ede and had till yesterday, August 2, 2019 to report to the Magistrate A. A Olowolagba to explain whether the case has been settled.
However, as both parties did not reach an agreement when the case came up yesterday, the Magistrate further adjourned the matter till August 24, for report of settlement or commencement of definite hearing. The victim, however, insisted that all she needed was for justice to take its course.
“I am not interested in any settlement. I want him to be punished for what he did. This can’t repair the damages he has done to me. I will kill myself if the case is eventually settled out of court. All I want is justice, that is all I want,” the distraught teenager said.
However, speaking on the development, the Executive Director, RULAAC, Mr. Okechukwu Nwanguma, in a statement in Lagos on Saturday frowned at the desperate attempts by the Islamic Scholar in Ede, Habeebullah Titilope Abdul-Rahman, accused by the sixteen year-old girl of raping and defiling her to derail and pervert justice by interfering with the trial at the Magistrate’s Court.
Nwanguma stated that the centre was also concerned by the role of the Magistrate, A. A Olowolagba in compounding a heinous crime of rape by giving room for out-of-court settlement.
He disclosed that aggrieved family members of the victim had complained about desperate attempts by the suspected rapist-Cleric to divide the family and use some compromised members to withdraw the case against the will of the victim and other family members including her siblings and mother who insisted on justice.
He further revealed that the victim had also threatened to commit suicide If the Cleric who defiled her was allowed to escape justice.
According to him,” RULAAC had earlier expressed concern over attempt by the Osun State Police Command to play down on the gravity of crime by arraigning the alleged rapist with lesser charges and failure of the Commissioner of Police, Osun State to heed the call by both the family and concerned groups including RULAAC to re-arraign the accused cleric on the proper charges of rape/ defilement in addition to other crimes as reported to the Police by the victim through a petition and elaborated in the statements made by her and her mother which the accused cleric has been unable to rebut.
“RULAAC finds it nauseating that a Magistrate purportedly adjourned a crime as grievous as rape/defilement for possible “settlement”. This Magistrate ought to be investigated for likely compromise of his professional integrity.
“RULAAC calls on the Osun State’s Commissioner for Justice and Hon. Attorney-General to take interest in this case and ensure that neither the accused nor the Magistrate is able to derail justice in this heinous crime.”
He therefore cautioned that the physical and psychological integrity of the abused and traumatized minor must be protected saying “she demands and deserves justice and must not be denied.”
“The point bears repeating that rape and defilement have been on a disturbing increase and everything must be done by all relevant authorities and every concerned Nigerian to end this scourge. The 16-year old minor was actually defiled because she’s incapable of giving or withholding consent”, he stated.
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