•The suspect, AbdulRahman Bello and victim, late Hafsoh Lawal
Abdulrahman Bello, the prime suspect in the murder of a final year female student of the Kwara State College of Education, Hafsoh Lawal, told the court today that he single-handedly carried out the cutting of the deceased into parts after taking alcohol.
Testifying before Justice Hannah Ajayi of the State High Court, while opening his defence, the suspect said that his co-defendants did not have a hand in the incident, reports Channels TV.
Abdulrahman Bello also told the court that he used the knife and cutlass found by police detectives in his two-room apartment at Olunlade area of Ilorin, the state capital, to dismember the body of the deceased.
The suspect, who denied killing the deceased, said that Hafsoh died when she gasped during sexual intercourse due to an asthma attack.
“I went out to get an inhaler for her when I noticed that she was gasping because she had asthma. By the time I came back into the room, she had died. So, I left my place to take alcohol and returned to cut the body parts into pieces,” he told the court.
During cross examination by the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), the prime suspect also confirmed to the court that he did not call any of his neighbours to the incident, or did he report the matter at the police station or took the body of the deceased to hospital, “because I was afraid of her father”.
The DPP put it to the suspect that the drained blood and human parts of the deceased found in his place had not decomposed after five days of the incident, because they were immersed in alcohol for preservation.
The suspect, however, denied keeping the blood and the hand, purposely, for money-making rituals.
He said he regretted all the actions he took over the incident, adding that he was deeply sad.
The prime suspect, who insisted that he did not kill the deceased, said that he loved her, “because I can’t ever meet her kind. She cared for my life. Even, I told the Police that she made me take the 2024 NABTEB examination. And that she made me take the JAMB form in preparation for the just concluded exam. She was exceptional in my life”.
He said he was tortured by the police to say in the video evidence, presented in court, that he poisoned the food taken by the deceased and that he strangulated her to kill her.
All four co-defendants in the matter denied knowledge of the killing of the deceased when testifying before the court.
Meanwhile, all the defence counsels, unanimously, proposed seven days to file their written addresses, concurrently, before the court, while the prosecution counsel asked for 10 days to file his, after the defence counsels would have served theirs.
Justice Hannah Ajayi, who granted the requests, later adjourned the matter to July 2, 2025, for final adoption of the addresses.
