A Kano State High Court sitting at Miller Road has sentenced the principal accused person in the case of kidnapped children in the state to 104 years in jail.
Paul Owne was sentenced by Justice Zuwaira Yusuf today following his guilty pleas to 38 count charge bordering on kidnapping and selling of children.
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The convict was arraigned before the court alongside five other defendants who pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Owne was arrested in 2019, trying to take a boy he had kidnapped from Yankaba quarters out of the state.
His arrest led to the recovery of nine children he had sold in Anambra State and the arrest of his wife and four other alleged accomplices.
“I find Owne guilty on counts two, eight, nine, 27 and 34. I hereby sentence him to seven years imprisonment on each of the counts without an option of fine, in addition to paying the sum of N100,000 fine.
“The court also found Owne guilty on counts three, five, 10, 11, 22, 28 and 38. I sentence him to seven years in a correctional centre on each of the counts,” the judge ruled.
She held that the convict was found guilty on counts four, 12, 13, 29 and 38, and sentenced him to four years in a correctional centre on each of the counts without an option of fine.
The sentences are to run concurrently, the judge ordered.
The other defendants are: Mercy Paul, Ebere Ogbono, Emmanuel Igwe, Loise Duru , Monica Oracha and Chinelo Ifedegwu.
Earlier, the Prosecution Counsel, Mahmoud Balarabe, told the court that the defendants were facing a 38-count charge, bordering on conspiracy, kidnapping and trafficking in children from Kano to Anambra, sometime in 2019.
According to him, the offences contravene the provisions of Sections 97(1), 273, 277 of the Penal Code and Section 32 (5) of the Children and Young Persons Law of Kano State, 2012.
Dateline Nigeria, in a special report, had reported how over 100 parents whose children were also kidnapped were battling ailments, leading to death of some of them.
A committee that was set up by the Kano State government after Paul was arrested, discovered that about 108 children had been kidnapped by child kidanpping syndicates operating in the state.
Efforts are still on to recover more children that were stolen and taken out of the state.
