Serial rapist gets 35-year jail term in Asaba

A TWENTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD rapist, Mr. Chukwu Ebuka Sunday, has been sentenced to 35 years in jail for participating in the gang raping of a 17-year-old schoolgirl at Akwuebulu on November 23, 2012 by an Asaba High Court on Tuesday.

   The trial judge (name withheld) sentenced Sunday, the leader of a six-man gang that specialised in raping young school girls, to the long jail term without an option of fine after being found guilty of raping the teenager (name withheld) with five other members of the gang, who are currently at large.

   The young rapist, a driver was sentenced to three years for count one, 30 years for count two and two years for count three which are to run concurrently.

   The teenage victim told the court that her mother had sent her on an errand to the market to buy foodstuffs on the fateful day, but on her way to the market, she was waylaid by Ebuka along Arthur Richard Street, Akwuebulu and seized by the skirt before being dragged into his house after locked the gate.

   Continuing, she said that as soon as he locked the gate, he brought out a cutlass and threatened to cut her with it. He then used the cutlass to hit her on her stomach and also hit himself severally with the cutlass and started boasting that he was a strong man and a cultist. Thereafter, he pushed her into his room and forcefully removed her underpants and raped her.

   In tears, she recounted: “After raping me, he called his friends on phone and five other boys came and also raped me in turns. They poured alcoholic drink on my face, broke raw eggs on my head and beat me up even as I was crying and pleaded that they should leave me. They also asked me to pay them N15,000 or else they would kill me and my parents.”

   The accused in his defense, however, denied the three-count charge of conspiracy to commit rape, rape and demanding with menace.

   The court, while delivering its verdict, held that prosecution was able to prove its case beyond all reasonable doubt as it established essential ingredients of the offence against the accused, adding that he believed the evidence of the victim as a witness of truth and disbelieved the evidence of the accused.

   The judge declared: “The evidence of PW1 was straight forward and to the point as she gave her evidence without any form of malice and with a disposition of forgiveness,” the court held.

   The Judge defended the stiff penalty, insisting that it would serve as deterrent to others as the rising cases of rape in society were alarming.