The prosecution witness in a case involving child stealing was cross-examined by the defence counsel in court on Wednesday.
The defence counsel, P.A. Anele, for the second and third defendants cross-examined the first prosecution witness over the case in court.
There were three defendants standing trial in the case, two of whom were male and one female, while others are at large.
While going through the case, the presiding judge of Port-Harcourt High Court, Honourable Justice S.H. Aprioku, said that the charge against the second and third defendants was child stealing while the offence of the first defendant was that he had shot the father of the child and kidnapped the child. The child was six-year-old.
The witness said that he arrested seven suspects in the case.
The witness also said that one of the suspects, Promise Thompson, helped in the investigation when he called the second defendant on the phone and established meeting point for yet another sale of another baby saying that it was how the police were able to trace them.
The first defendant, Promise Thompson, and the second and third defendants, Queen Lucky and Lucky Wokoma, were in prison uniform when they appeared in court for trial on Wednesday.
The first defendant was arrested in Port-Harcourt. The second and third defendants were arrested in Aba, Abia State.
The counsel had said that his clients did not take part in stealing of the child but the prosecution witness said that they took part in stealing the six-year-old.
The case is about a child kidnapped and taken to Aba for sale to a Catholic nun and later found in a motherless babies’ home run by a Catholic nun.
The defence counsel alleged bias when he said some of the suspects arrested were allegedly released.
The kingpin of the crime, Beatrice Ogwunka, one of the suspects, was allegedly granted administrative bail but had jumped bail.
The witness said he did not demand money from third defendant in order to release him when he responded to an allegation that he had wanted to collect money in order to release him.
Speaking on the case, the prosecuting counsel from the State Ministry of Justice who did not want her name in print said the case was about armed robbery, kidnapping and child stealing.
The prosecuting counsel said: “From the facts of the case and investigation of the IPO (Investigating Police Officer), the robbers went to the house of the complainant (and) after robbing and they felt they didn’t get anything tangible they had to kidnap the youngest child in the house and after they kidnapped the youngest child and collected the phones and other things they saw in the house, they used the phone to call the parents of the child and demanded for ransom and ransom was paid (and) after ransom was paid they reneged and went to Aba in Abia State to sell the child.”
The prosecuting counsel said that the police were able to get the main defendant through a phone he had collected from scene of robbery and sold.
She said the first defendant went to the robbery with two others who were at large.
She also said that police discovered those who had bought the child after the first defendant was arrested, saying that the police made arrests.
The father of the six-year-old, Chidi Ebere, said that the incident happened on October 25, 2018 at Trans Kalabari Road, Iwofe, saying that he got back his child in April 2019.
