Two prison escapees, Edison Okechukwu and Morison Sunday, have been nabbed by crack operatives of the Force Intelligence Bureau-Intelligence Response Team (FIB-IRT) for armed robbery and kidnapping a female lawyer in Port Harcourt, Rivers State capital.
The suspects were arrested on November 10, 2022, at Rumuola junction in the state capital.
Preliminary investigations revealed that both suspects, who hail from Rumuji in Emohua Local Government Area of the state, were long-time kidnappers, armed robbers, and car snatchers.
Thenewsbearer learnt that Okechukwu and Sunday, along with two other gang members who carried out the kidnapping, had previously spent 11 years in the Nigeria Correctional Service, Owerri, Imo State as awaiting trial inmates for kidnapping .
During interrogation, the suspects opened up to the Intelligence Response Team led by its Commander, DCP Tunji Disu on how they coordinated and led a kidnapping syndicate in Port Harcourt after the prison escape.
The suspects, along with another gang member who is also an ex-convict from the same correctional facility, were arrested
after IRT operatives got information about the kidnapping of the female lawyer who was held captive for three days.
Police authorities promptly directed the operatives to conduct an immediate search and rescue of the lawyer.
It was further learnt that the lawyer was released after the suspected criminals were apprehended, while she identified two of the suspects in the police net as the people who kidnapped her and stole N5 million from her bank account.
Speaking on what initially led to his prison remand, the gang leader Okechukwu, said that he was imprisoned because he loaned a car to a roommate named Emmanuel, who was later arrested and charged with kidnapping.
He also stated that he had spent 11 years as an awaiting trial inmate in the Imo State prison prior to the jail break, and that the attackers of the prison invaded the facility and ordered inmates to leave.
On kidnapping, he stated that they spotted the victim along Igwuruta road coming out of a shop in the city and kidnapped her, then called one Chukwuemeka Onu, aged 25, from his village to arrange for keeping their victim in hostage in an uncompleted building.
According to Okechukwu, who spoke for the gang, “we left the correctional facility on Monday, April 5, 2022, during the attack on the prison by a group of unknown gunmen who threw dynamites at the walls of the prison and commanded inmates to flee.
“We went into kidnapping, robbery, and car theft after some armed soldiers invaded and destroyed the oil bunkering site we were making a living from after the jail break freedom, as we lost everything that was sustaining our family.”
In Onu’s confession, he said that he took Okechukwu, the gang leader, to Eneke, a semi-urban settlement in the city, to make arrangements for where to keep his bunkering equipment, not realizing he was accompanied by a kidnapped woman.
One of the suspects also admitted that he was imprisoned in the Imo State prison prior to the jail break and had spent 14 years there, before his case of armed robbery was reassigned to a new judge.
Thenewsbearer gathered that the IRT team was still looking into their involvement in other criminal activities in the state and making effort to apprehend other gang members .
The Inspector-General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba, had previously issued orders that all suspects arrested be prosecuted in the nation’s law courts as soon as possible.
