Takoradi kidnapping: Accused persons’ Facebook chats reveal coded language on kidnapping

The Chief State Attorney in the case of the three Takoradi missing girls, Patience Klinogo, has told the Sekondi High Court that the two Nigerians standing trial for the crime, Sam Udoetuk Wills and John Oji, used coded language on kidnapping and other crimes in their conversations on social media networking platform, Facebook.

During proceedings in court on Wednesday - July 31, 2019 - she revealed that the accused persons used a language that related to kidnapping and blood sacrifice.

The two men have been charged with six counts of “conspiracy to commit crime to wit kidnapping and kidnapping.

The State Attorney told the court that the interaction of the accused persons was detected on the mobile phone of the second accused, John Oji, after police arrested him on June 4, 2019, at Aflao around the Ghana-Togo border.

“Facebook chats from his mobile phone between A1 [Sam Udoetuk Wills] and A2 [John Oji] revealed coded language on kidnapping and blood sacrifice as well as discussions on drugs which could be administered to victims to stupor,” she said.

Continuing, the prosecutor also revealed various mobile phone numbers that were traced to the two accused persons after they used them to receive money from victims’ relations.

“On 6th June 2019, John Oji, in his investigation caution statement stated that he came from Nigeria to Takoradi in the first week of December 2018 to see Sam Udoetuk Wills, who is the first accused, upon invitations from him. Oji admitted that he knew the two mobile numbers used to receive ransom from parents by Wills. That he used to communicate and WhatsApp Wills on same.”

The two accused persons, however, pleaded not guilty to the charges brought against them by the State following an amendment in the charge sheet.

The Presiding Judge, Hanna Taylor, adjourned the case to October 16, 2019, to allow the State Attorney to serve the accused persons with the charge sheet and the statement of facts as well as present any other witnesses or exhibits at the next sitting.

One of the aggrieved parents who was not amused by the proceedings and delays in seeing her missing daughter attacked one of the accused persons just outside the courtroom.

It took the intervention of the police to rescue the accused from the heckling.

Credit: Citinewsroom.com