A High Court sitting in Osogbo, Osun State on Wednesday sentenced Adedeji Adesola, the receptionist that received late Timothy Adegoke when he lodged in the Hilton Hotel, Ile-Ife on November 6, 2021, to two years imprisonment for altering the receipt issued to the deceased.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Adesola was said to had fabricated another receipt as directed by her employer (Rahman Adedoyin) in order to conceal any trace of the deceased death from the police .
Delivering judgment, Justice Adepele Ojo, who sentenced Adesola, said the two-year jail term starts from the first day she was detained for the crime.
NAN reports that Adesola was arraigned alongside six others on 11 counts bothering on conspiracy, murder and felony among others.
They all pleaded not guilty to all the counts.
NAN further reports that the case with file number: HOS / 5C/ 2022, dated February 14, 2022 and filed on February 17, 2022, was substituted with: HOS/5C/ 2022, dated February 22, 2022 and filed on March 2, 2022.
Adegoke was a postgraduate student at the Obafemi Awolowo University.
He left Abuja on November 5, 2021 to sit for his last examination in the university at Ile-Ife.
The deceased had lodged at the Hilton Hotels belonging to Adedoyin, where he allegedly lost his life and was declared missing on November 7, 2021 after his classmates discovered that he did not show up in class at Moro Distance Learning Centre of the university.
Also, the police investigation revealed that he had told his family of his plans to check into Hilton Hotels in Ile-Ife, where he usually stayed whenever he arrived Ife, but this was initially denied by the hotel management.
Police investigation further revealed that one of the white Hilux vans allegedly used in carrying the deceased’s body by the son of the owner of the hotel, Raheem Adedoyin, was later recovered in an undisclosed place in Abuja.
Adedoyin’s son was the Managing Director of the hotel and reportedly supervised the dumping of Adegoke’s body in a shallow grave along Ife highway before it was recovered by the police.
NAN also reports that the owner of the hotel, Adedoyin, and two other staff of the hotel were sentenced to death by hanging by the same court on Tuesday.
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