•24 criminals paraded

From Chuks Onuoha Umuahia

The police in Abia State have paraded 24 suspected criminals in Umuahia.
One of them was a 24-year-old commercial tricyclist simply called Samuel. He  was said to be a member of the three-man gang that robbed, raped and killed a 65-year old grandmother at Ofeme.  The incident happened on October 8 at about 9pm.
The Commissioner of Police, Mr Leye Oyebade, said in Umuahia, that the victim, Mrs Anthonia Dike, was  returning   from  Jos on a business trip when the three hoodlums, who rode on a motorbike  trailed the  bus in which they were traveling, from Okigwe in Imo State   to a point along the Ofeme axis of the express road. They blocked the bus  and dragged out all the passengers into a nearby bush .
They   dispossessed them of their wares, cash and other valuables, separated the men from women and had sex with the female passengers.
He said the suspects dragged the 65-year- old woman into the bush, where they raped her in turns.
“Having satisfied their evil sexual desires on the 65-year old grandmother, and were ready to go, one of them pulled out a gun, pointed it on her middle nose region and pulled the trigger. The woman died instantly,” Oyebade said.
Okorie who struggled to exonerate  himself  of the crime, told  newsmen that he was not the one that killed the grandmother,  but the two men he carried on his bike, who are now at large .
“I was not the one that killed the woman, but the two men that I carried on my bike. I am the pilot that carried them, I cannot say that I don’t know what they were doing, but I only took them there and waited for them to finish. I did not follow them to rob or kill anybody. The  two men I carried,  robbed, the people,  and killed the women,” he said.
Okorie who said he lives at Agiriga area of Okigwe, said  he was in the bush waiting for his two friends  without knowing that they were raping the women.