Minna Hotelier Docked for Alleged Rape

Laleye Dipo in Minna

A hotel proprietor has been docked in prison by Minna Senior Magistrate Court, Niger State, for the alleged rape of a married woman.

The hotel owner is also standing trial for five other offences of wrongful restraint, wrongful confinement, assault or criminal force to a woman with intent to outrage her modesty and criminal intimidation.

According to the prosecution, the offences are punishable under Sections 389,256,257,283(1), and 397(A) of the penal code law.

The prosecution told Senior Magistrate

Christy Barau that the accused lured the victim, a mother of a seven-month-old boy, to his hotel room with the intent to purchase some items the woman was selling.

According to the report, the victim, one of the saleswomen of Neolife Supplements drugs, had first approached the hotelier with a product resulting in the accused collecting her telephone number and bank account details after chatting with her on Facebook.

The court heard that the accused first sent a network card of N1,000 to the victim only for her to later receive a bank alert of N10,000 from the hotelier

The victim, the prosecution said, asked the hotelier why he sent the card and the money to her, which he said was a gift, but she rejected the gifts and asked him to send his account details for her to return the money, but the accused reportedly asked her to bring the money to the hotel.

The court was told that the victim took the money in the company of her seven-month-old baby  to the accused in the hotel and was taken into one of the rooms where she was forcefully raped.

The prosecution further narrated to the court that as the victim  “struggled to be free of your assault on her person, the cloth she wore and the strap of bra got torn and you forcefully had sexual intercourse with her without her consent in the presence of her seven-month-old baby boy, who was crying.”

The prosecution further told the court that on the receipt of the report, police detectives swung into action and effected the arrest of the hotelier, adding that  during investigation, the victim was able to identify the accused.

When the charges were read to the accused, he pleaded not guilty, and the police said since the case could not be tried by the court, he would seek legal advice from the Ministry of Justice and therefore, asked for the hotelier to be remanded in the correctional centre

Senior Magistrate Barau granted the request of the prosecution by ordering for his remand and adjourned the case to November 13.