Police arrest suspects for defiling 12-year-old

The Abia State Police Command has arrested and paraded three suspects, who allegedly raped a 12-year-old girl in Arochukwu Local Council Area of the state.

The suspects, who are 35-year-old Chima Ochiabuto, Immaculate Ogbonnaya (25), and Uche Nwaokoro (20) allegedly, defiled the minor at different occasions.

It was learnt that the incident was reported to the police after the girl got missing for two days and later returned to her guardian identified only as Oluchi.

The victim was said to be looking pale when she was returned to Oluchi.

According Oluchi, “I sent my younger sibling on an errand, but she absconded only to resurface after two days. When I asked her of her whereabouts, she didn’t say anything reasonable.

So, I alerted the youths in the community and in the process of questioning her, she told us that she was with some men who raped her and also said the other two had raped her in the past.”

The State Police Commissioner, Mr. Adeleye Oyabade, confirmed that the hoodlums, who had taken their turn to defile the minor, were, were arrested following the alarm raised by the guardian.

Oyebade pointed out that the rape case was confirmed at Arochukwu General Hospital where the victim was admitted.

He said the suspects had confessed to the crime and would be arraigned in court.

While two of the suspects, Ochiabuto and Ogbonnaya, denied defiling the young girl, Nwaokoro confessed that it was the devil that led him into the ugly act.

Nwaokoro said, “It started one day when the girl’s aunty sent her to our house to call another girl named Chizoba for her sometime in the month of August.

“It was while she was waiting for Chizoba that the devil led me to touch her. Please I am sorry; it is the devil.”

Ochiabuto, however, claimed to have rescued the rape victim one night when her guardian sent her out of the house.

According to him, “I found this girl wandering around the village one night in the month of June. So, I asked what her problem was and she told me that the aunty sent her away for misbehaving.

“She spent only one night in my house, although I was tempted to touch her, but I didn’t do anything with her.”