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Chioma Okezie-Okeh
Detectives attached to the Inspector-General of Police’s Intelligence Response Team (IRT) have arrested one of the suspected kidnappers who sometime in April invaded the home of a Rivers-based magistrate (names withheld) at the Rumuagholu area of the state, abducting his daughter.
The suspect, identified as Gift Tasie, m, 22, a member of the Icelander cult gang alongside four other suspects currently at large, had robbed the family before dragging their daughter to the gang’s hideout. She was said to have miraculously escaped from her abductors a few days later while they were still negotiating ransom terms with her family.
According to our police source, the IRT team based at its annex office in R8vers State were able track the suspect to his home and are still on the trail of the other suspects still at large.
Recounting the horrifying incident, the magistrate told the police that about four armed men accessed his home through the roof at the back at about 3 am. Three of them who were armed with guns ordered him and his entire family to lie face down on the floor.
The family were blindfolded and had their hands and legs bound. The gang then then took its time to raid the house of every available valuable they could find, including phones, money, jewelry, electronic devices, clothing and shoes.
According to the magistrate, the invaders spent more than an hour scouting for valuables before packing their loot inside one of his cars after which his 25-year-old daughter was taken hostage.
The gang was also said to have withdrawn N100,000 from her account through ATM.
On the second day, the gang were said to have contacted the magistrate and demanded N10 million as ransom for his daughter. Negotiating the ransom with the gang, the kidnappers had refused to accept the amount he’d offered and had cut off the call, but not before promising to call back the next day.
His daughter meanwhile had managed to escaped from her abductors and returned back home.
On how she managed to escape, the magistrate told the police that she had been on her period at the time she was taken hostage. She’d supposedly begged and convinced her abductors to help her get relief for her menstrual cramps, resulting in their offering to buy her a bottle of Chelsea liqueur.
One of the kidnappers reportedly volunteered to go to town and buy it and when he wasted time returning, the second person decided to go and check on her.
The only one left to guard the hostage, after waiting another 30 minutes for their return, also decided to check on the others, leaving her unguarded. On sensing that she was alone in the forest, she started screaming and when no one heard her. She started praying, shouting the name Jesus, vowing that after shouting the name Jesus for a 100 times she will try to escape, the magistrate said.
After a couple of minutes, she was said to have untied herself and ran to the main road, where a Good Samaritan reportedly gave her transport fare back home. She told her father that she was held at Rukpokwu forest in Obi Akpor local government area.
On his alleged role in the hostage-taking and robbery, the arrested suspect Tasie, who is a native of Emohua local government area, said that he had been assigned to watch the area while the other gang members entered the house.
‘I am an orphan, so I dropped out of school as soon my parents died,’he said. ‘It was because I needed to survive that made me to join a bad gang led by one Ihekazi Igwe. He started by initiating me into their cult group known as Icelander.
‘On the day of the incident, I joined them at an agreed location at Omagwa. When I got there, Ihekazi, Ibuchi, Bright and Sampson Aaron were already on ground with their guns. We drove to the house and I was only given a machete to hold and watch out for vigilante boys. After about an hour, they drove out with another car and inside the car was the girl. When we got to the bush, they shared all the valuables that was gotten and I was given N10,000 and a wrapper. I was asked to go home because I live with my sister and if she does not see me in [after] 24 hours she could raise an alarm.
‘When I called them the next day, they told me that they asked the family to pay N4 million. I was waiting to be called to collect my share when Ihekazi called and said that she had escaped. I wanted to use my share to start a business.I am sorry, it was poverty that led me to crime,’ the suspect pleaded in his confession.
