A Lokoja Chief Magistrate’s Court on Thursday remanded one Abuh Yakubu, an auto mechanic, in prison over alleged abduction and killing of Yakubu Suleiman, 24.
The Chief Magistrate, Levi Animoku, who ordered the remand of the accused, rejected Yakubu’s bail application because the alleged crime was “heinous and horrifying”.
“It is the highest crime known to law; bail is not granted as a matter of course,” he declared.
He added that section 341(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), precluded the court from granting bail to the accused.
“I refuse to admit you to bail because the offence is heinous and carries high penalty.
“The propensity of the accused to elope justice is high; it is not safe for the court to admit him to bail,” the magistrate said.
Animoku, consequently, ordered that the accused be remanded in Federal Prisons, Ankpa and transferred the case to Sept. 26, for mention.
Earlier, the Prosecuting Police Officer, Mr Friday Shaibu, had told the court that the father of the deceased, Col. Suleiman Babanawa (Rtd), reported the matter on Nov. 28, 2016 at the Divisional Police Headquarters in Okpo.
According to Shaibu, late Yakubu was at a party in Agala-Ikeje on Nov. 26, 2016, at about 10 p.m., when a group of persons invaded the venue of the party, abducted him into a car and drove to an unknown destination.
He alleged that the accused and three others – Felix Ameh, Sunday Otene and one other, now at large, had criminally conspired to perpetrate the act.
The prosecutor said that a search party later found the corpse of Yakubu in Otukpa, Benue State, with bullet wounds all over him.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that when the case came up on Thursday, Counsel to the accused, Mr E.A. Majebi, presented an oral application for bail, premising that on the presumption that an accused was innocent until proven otherwise.
The Prosecutor, however, argued that the accused would jump bail, commit similar offence and even interfere with police investigation, since investigation into the matter was still ongoing.
NAN reports that the two other accused, Otene and Ameh, had earlier appeared in court where they pleaded not guilty to the charge.