Court orders kidnap kingpin, Evans to return €233,000 ransom to victim

Justice Olukayode Ogunjobi of the Lagos High Court sitting at the Tafawa Balewa Square has ordered kidnap kingpin, Chukwudumeme Onwuamadike, aka Evans, to refund the sum of €233,000 ransom he collected from one of his victims, Chief Donatus Duru.

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Evans abducted Dunu, who is a pharmacist, on February 14, 2017. Duru later escaped from captivity after the convicted kidnapper took €233,000 from the victim.

Delivering his judgment, Justice Ogunjobi also ordered Evans to pay N50m as general damages in favour of the claimant.

Justice Ogunjobi held: “It is settled law that no witness who gives materially inconsistent evidence on oath is entitled to the honour of being accorded any credibility and such does not deserve to be treated as a truthful witness.

“Besides adducing conflicting pieces of evidence on oath, I have watched the demeanor of the Defendant in the witness box when giving evidence and came to the conclusion that the Defendant is not a witness of truth.

“I do not believe his evidence. I accept the unchallenged and uncontroverted evidence of the Claimant and his witnesses. The evidence support the reliefs sought by the Claimant.

“Consequently, the Claimant is entitled to be paid or repaid and or recover from the Defendant, the sum of Euros 233,000 ransom coercively paid by the Claimant to Defendant when the Defendant kidnapped the Claimant in the year 2017 and held the Claimant hostage for months.

“The sum of N50 million is awarded as general damages in favour of the Claimant against the Defendant.

“Post-judgment interest is awarded on the said sum of Euros 233,000 at the rate of 10% per annum from judgment i.e. 14th of February, 2023 until final liquidation. The adjudged said sum of Euros 233,000 and N50million is hereby ordered to be paid or recovered from the Assets of the Defendant. This is the judgment of the Court.”

The court however refused the claim for the pre-judgment interest of 40 percent per annum on the €233,000.

Earlier in his testimony, the claimant explained that despite Evans collecting the €233,000 ransom, he failed to release him and he had to escape by himself.

TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) recalls that Duru, who appeared before Justice Hakeem Oshodi, disclosed how he escaped after spending 88 days in the kidnappers’ den located somewhere in Igando, Lagos.

In his words:

I closed from work at 7:30 p.m. when an SUV double-crossed me in Ilupeju and a man came down from the car and pointed a long gun at me.

“He dragged me down and pushed me into the booth of their car and covered the car.

“I found myself in their den and during an interaction with their chairman, Evans, on phone, he told me that it was only God that could save me from their hands. He said no man will ever find me even if they kill me.

“I overheard one of the kidnappers telling others that the best option was to kill me since my brothers were not acting fast in paying their one million Euro ransom.

“But after I prayed in the midnight of Thursday, before the Friday they scheduled to kill me, I wrapped the bed spread in the room where they kept me, round the shackles on my legs, like the one used to chain mad people, the padlocks opened up.”

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