Imo abduction: Again, courtroom adjourns DSS, NYSC corps members’ kidnappers’ case

In a bid to provide the instances on the arraignment of three individuals suspected to have kidnapped 20 potential corps members on October 1, 2026  in Umunoha, Mbaitoli Local Government Area (LGA) of Imo state and two others suspected to have kidnapped 4 different individuals accelerated listening to, the High Court sitting in Owerri and headed by Justice Emeka Orafu, Thursday, adjourned the instances to Tuesday twenty seventh, Wednesday twenty eighth and Thursday twenty ninth of October, 2026.

According to Justice Orafu, the up coming dates would give  sufficient time for additional cross-examination of witnesses within the two instances HOU/22C/2026 and HOU/23C/ 2026 to make sure fast dispensation of justice.

However, throughout cross-examination on Thursday, a consultant of the Department of State Service (DSS) who arrested the abductors of the corps members, advised the courtroom how the suspects kidnapped the corpers and the way their abductors had been arrested.

He mentioned the corps members started their journey from Ibadan, Oyo state at about 6.30 hours within the morning of thirtieth of October, 2026, travelling to Abia and Akwa Ibom states to meet up with their  National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) tenting formalities, earlier than they had been stopped at Umunoha in Imo state and brought hostage.

He additional mentioned that they’d stopped over at Onitsha, Anambra state, the identical day earlier than persevering with their journey the subsequent day being 1st of October, 2026. And on attending to Umunoha, Imo state, their two buses got here below assault they usually had been taken hostage by the abductors who had been wielding AK 47 rifles and different harmful weapons.

He mentioned it was intelligence evaluation by the DSS that led to the return of the corpers after ransom funds had been made.

He disclosed that “It was between tenth and 14th of October, 2026 that the three suspects, specifically, Mohammed Aliyu, Usman Aliyu and Babangida Aliyu had been arrested.

“We used intelligence gathering and file checks, took every particular person’s statements and  took down he statements of the hostages, together with a driver of one of many buses carrying the corpers, to reach at our place.

“We equally paraded the 3 accused persons before the witnesses, conducted data analysis, checked the mobile phones of the accused persons and the witnesses and hostages were able to identify the suspects”.

The DSS consultant additional mentioned that one of many drivers of the buses, recognized as Sunday Udoh and three of the kidnapped corpers – Esther Oladipo, Mary Makinde and Timi Serah, had been capable of recognise and determine the suspects and even have descriptions of these at massive, and that even the defendants, from their statements, had admitted taking part within the kidnap act.