Daily Trust, Abuja, 24 June 2003

Sharia Court Jails Man For Trespassing Into Girls Hostel

By Lawal Ibrahim Katsina

The Upper Sharia Court in Dutsinma Local Government Area of Katsina State has sentenced a 45-year-old Mallam Abdu Rabe of Karofi village to two years imprisonment with no option of fine and 20 strokes of cane for illicit trespass into girls hostel.

Delivering the judgment, the Sharia Court Judge, Al-Habiz Abubakar, found the accused guilty of trespassing into Government Girls Secondary School, Dutsinma with the intent of having indecent act with the students.

Earlier, in their testimonies, the principal of the school, Hajiya Halima Ruma and a security man in the school, Malam Sule Mohammed, had informed the court that Sule [sic] had at about midnight of May 6, 2003, entered through the school back yard, by jumping over the fence and found his way into the girls hostel.

She said a watchman was attracted by a suspicious alarm raised by one of the students who was awoken by a strange touch over her body by the accused, a situation that resulted to a simultaneous alarm by other occupants of the dormitory upon seeing a strange man in the hostel.

Sule Mohammed informed the court that it took him a thorough search before he could locate the accused in one of the girls' toilets, where succeeded [sic] in apprehending him after a tense physical combat between the two.

A police prosecutor, who also testified before the court, said Abdu Rabe is a renowned man of questionable character in Karofi Local Government Area.

He pleaded guilty of the offence and was convicted under section 225 of the penal code.