BREAKING NEWS: Kidnapped German killed in JTF raid - Source

News reaching Todaysgist (TG) confirms that the German, Raufach Edgar, who was kidnapped in Kano on January 26 this year was killed by his captors this morning before he could be rescued by men of the JTF.

The JTF had conducted a raid at Danbare area opposite the new campus of Bayero University Kano this morning after tracing the kidnapped German to the hideout where he was being held but the captors killed him before the JTF could apprehend them.

The raid is still ongoing and sporadic shootings are still being heard by residents who are all trapped within their homes and unable to go to work. A military helicopter is also still hovering overhead, providing aerial support to the forces on the ground.

The JTF is to brief the press soon on the incident.

Raufach Edgar was until his kidnap working with Dantata and Sawoe construction company. He was abducted  by two gun men around 8 am on January 26 along the Zaria - Kano expressway were his company is located.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb connection

On March 27, a Mauritanian and four other men were arrested in Kano over the January kidnapping. Four of the suspects were arrested in a raid on a supermarket owned by the Mauritanian, while the fifth was held in a separate raid.

“Guns and a laptop were recovered in the store and the documents found in the computer, including an AQIM operation manual, showed that the suspects are linked to AQIM (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) and were involved in the kidnap of the German engineer in January,” one of the sources said in describing the supermarket raid.

AQIM has also disclosed through a private news agency in Mauritania a week before the raid that it was holding the German and that it wanted to swap him for a jailed Muslim woman.

A video obtained by the agency, ANI, showed Raupach, his hands tied behind his back, surrounded by masked gunmen. In the video he called on his "parents, friends and German public opinion" to convince Berlin to "bring an end to the torture of our Muslim sister", adding that only her liberation will save his life.

AQIM warned that any attempt to rescue Raupach will lead to his death, as happened in the case of Italian engineer Franco Lamolinara and British colleague Chris McManus, killed earlier this month during a failed rescue bid by Nigerian forces.

A source, speaking of the Mauritanian, said “he turned the upper floor of his store into a hideout where he housed his three Nigerian accomplices.”

Germany responds

A release said to be authorised by the German Embassy in Abuja and published as an advert in Daily Trust on May 11, 2012 claimed the German woman in question, had been released.

The woman, Filiz Gelowicz, who had converted to Islam and now bears the name Uma Saifullah Al-Ansariya, was released two weeks ago, according to the advert.

The publication announcing the release of the jailed German woman said, “100 days missing. Your sister Uma Saifullah Al-Ansariya (Filiz Gelowicz) is free since two weeks. When do you release our brother Edgar?? His friends are waiting for him…”

Edgar’s photo was placed by the side of the text of the advert, which also contained a message in Arabic apparently meant to inform the kidnappers of the release of Gelowicz.

Source:DailyTrust

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Evil Minded Kidnapping Couple Nabbed In Lagos..How They Made Millions

A couple suspected to be serial kidnappers of international dimension has been nabbed by the men of Lagos State Police command. Mr. Nwangwu Emmanuel and his wife Beatricial Nwangwu were arrested recently by the operatives of the State Anti-Robbery Squad(SARS) after a long search. The suspected evil couple according to police source, were arrested in Abuja where the husband was working as a driver to a retired military officer.

 Before their arrest, the couple had thrown several families into trauma, pains and tears by kidnapping their children and carried them across the border to Ghana where they demanded and received ransoms in millions of naira. Before the police made what was been described as a major breakthrough in the quest to unravel the mystery behind several incidents of unreported cases of kidnapping in the state, the couple had earlier been declared wanted by the Interpol, Force CID, Abuja, Lagos State command, SARS, Zone 2 and Lagos. 

 Speaking on the arrest, the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Umar Manko who described the couple as notorious noted that most of their victims were children of the families where the wife had served as housemaid. He explained that after kidnapping the children they would run to Ghana and start demanding for ransom running into several millions from their victims. 

“ They would tell the victims to pay ransom to a bank account in Ghana and they would later instruct them to collect their children at a particular hotel in Ghana.” CP Manko said some policemen in Ghana were dismissed from their job because they collected some illegal money from the couple. The police in Ghana later declared the couple wanted for using their country as a country of collecting ransom from victims of the kidnappers. The police in Ghana was also said to have frozen the account of the suspects Manko added that it was a female DPO who got the number of the suspects and that it was after that, that he tasked the SARS to go to Abuja and arrest the suspects . 

 The husband told his story to Crimewatch “I am from Enugu State and I grew up in Ghana where I stayed for ten years. In 2008, I was employed by Mrs Folake Coker in Ikoyi Lagos and I was being paid the monthly salary of N25,000. One day I deceived one of the house maids to buy something for me pretending to be sick. Then I used the opportunity to kidnap the 2years old daughter of my boss.

 quickly took a cab to Mile 2 before taking a drop to Ghana. “ I later called my boss and she recognized my voice. I demanded a ransom of N22million. The money was paid to my bank account in Ghana. I dropped the daughter in one hotel in Ghana and told them to pick her up there. I used the money to buy cars which I was selling in Ghana. Nwangwu explained that in 2009 his wife was employed as housemaid to Mr Alfred Edozie and that after just one month, the wife kidnapped one of her boss’s daughter. 

“My wife just called me one day that I should bring a taxi to the estate that she has kidnapped one of the daughters of her boss. Immediately we took the daughter and passed through Mile 2 and took a drop to Ghana. We called the family of the girls and we made a demand of N15million as ransom, but they paid N12M to my wife’s bank account in Ghana. We didn’t know that the Interpol were already monitoring us. “When we went to withdraw the money the bank manager first paid her N6m and told her to come back the following day for the remaining ones.

 The Interpol officials from Ghana cornered my wife and told her that the Nigerian police would soon arrest her. My wife gave the police officer N6m and he took my wife to an hotel in Ghana and later told us to escape. The bank in Ghana closed our account ., That was how we lost the N12m in Ghana,” he said. Nwangwu said when they moved back to Nigeria his wife delivered and he began to search for a job. “Later I got a job in Abuja as a driver to a retired military officer in 2012. 

After I and my wife moved to Abuja. One day I just saw policemen who came and arrested me in the presence of my boss.” Also speaking, the second suspect, his wife said it was easy for her to kidnap because she pretended to be a housemaid and when she is employed after some days or weeks she will kidnap the kids of her employer.. CP Manko said the investigation is still ongoing in the matter and that when it is concluded they will be taken to court.

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Bishop Oyedepo and Police In Alleged Cover-Up Of 2-Year Old Missing Child

According to what Daily Times reported; it has been over a year since Samuel Eleng and his wife, Favour, lost their two-year-old twin daughter at the Children’s department of the Canaan Land, Winners Chapel headquarters, Sango-Ota in Ogun State, and yet, there

is no sign of the girl.

The couple are still stunned by the mysterious disappearance of Praise on April 17, 2011, an Easter Sunday.

Although the Church’s founder, David Oyedepo, was said to have shown support to the family, however, Samuel alleged that the Church had been meddling with the case to prevent it from going public.

“We handed our girls, Praise and Glory, over to the school teachers under whose custody many other children were kept.

They gave us two tags as proof that we had our children under their care for that day,” said Samuel.

However, by the end of the church service, Praise had gone missing from the class in which she was left.

Even the teachers in charge of the twin girls were not in sight, as they were said to have all gone for service as at the time the couple went to get their daughters.

“I saw my wife around the vicinity of the Children’s section, she was crying. She told me that Praise was missing,” he said.

Samuel said they eventually got hold of one of the four teachers supposedly in charge of the children’s class, who was also at a loss regarding the whereabouts of Praise.

“She claimed not to know but advised us to check other classes. So we started moving around from class to class, around the church premises,” he continued.

By then apprehensive but still hopeful, the couple waited until after the service and reported the matter to Oyedepo, who prayed and joined them in the search.

“He (Oyedepo) walked with us to the Children’s department and after praying, he said he has not seen any evil signal,” Samuel said.

However, a more frantic search for Praise was not successful as the hours harrowingly dragged on into days and months for the troubled family.

“I was thinking so many things; how can I come to the house of God and my child will suddenly disappear? Even if it was time for rapture, how can it just pick my child only?” Samuel said.

Thwarting police investigation

The case was later reported by the church’s Chief Security Officer, Supol Cosmas, at the Police Area Command in Onipanu, Sango-Ota in Ogun State, where one Ijeoma Lawal was assigned as the Investigating Police Officer (IPO).

A source at the police station said that Samuel was questioned but the four teachers directly connected to Praise’s disappearance were prevented from making statements.

The source also claimed that a call had come from a senior pastor of the church asking the police not to interrogate the teachers because they had volunteered for the job and should not be put through any hassles.

“The caller told the police that the church will handle the matter themselves and the four teachers were promptly released,” said the source.

After there appeared to be no headway in the efforts to find Praise, Samuel said he became disturbed and suggested that the case be made public.

With photographs of his missing daughter and his wife in tow, Samuel got an interview at the Africa Independent Television (AIT) in Alagbado, Lagos.

But when Samuel’s plea to the public for information aired on the station, the broadcaster gave the impression that Praise had disappeared at the couple’s Satellite Town residence, and not the Winners Chapel.

“I called the AIT man named Desmond to complain and he told me that was the instruction he received from the church.

Even the IPO called me to say that she watched the broadcast and was shocked at what was reported,” he said.

Samuel added that his complaints about the AIT broadcast to the church were also not taken seriously.

“Is it a sin for me to go to a church of God with my family? This is a year that my child disappeared under the church’s custody.

How can I go to AIT only to have a different thing shown? How can the church interfere with police investigation?” He asked.

Samuel claimed that, in the same week his child got missing, he had suggested that the four affected voluntary teachers be invited for questioning with Lawal in attendance.

But none of the voluntary teachers nor the Investigating officer showed up for the meeting as the Elengs and a neighbour, one Blessing, who had accompanied the couple, waited in vain.

Also, last August when Samuel had gone to visit Lawal, he said he was welcomed with congratulatory messages from police officers at the police station, who claimed to have received a call from the church informing them that Praise had been found and that the case be withdrawn.

In the same month, thoroughly dissatisfied with the way his church was handling the matter, coupled with the meddling, Samuel took matters in his own hands.

One Sunday, Samuel said he went to the Church’s Children Department and bared his anger by declaring that no kid should go in unless his daughter was found.

Samuel said his attitude was promptly reported to Oyedepo, who warned him never to go near the Children’s department again.

Before then, according to Samuel, Oyedepo was in constant communication with him, but since the classroom incident, “he stopped taking my calls and no more talk about my missing daughter.”

Calls for more prayer

Samuel said he did not meet Oyedepo again until recently when they met on April 12, 2012, almost a year since his child was missing.

“I told him (Oyedepo) that my child was still missing and he said ‘be prayerful, the Lord will strengthen you and your child will be found’,” Samuel said.

A source at the church however claimed that a handful of church members, including Cosmas, who also doubles as Aide-de-camp to Oyedepo, are making efforts to find Praise.

The source also said that series of meetings were recently held by the church, where the four teachers were invited.

When called to confirm the report, Lawal declined to comment on the issue, saying, “please, don’t involve me in the matter.”

Cosmas also denied any knowledge of the incident, appearing to be more interested in how Daily Times got his number.

However, Desmond confirmed that Praise’s disappearance was reported and broadcasted by the television station a year ago.

The Elengs are now at a crossroad, torn between reverence for their church pastor whom they fondly call ‘Daddy’, and their filial love for their child whom Samuel referred to as “our first fruit”.

Also, the couple’s pain has recently been heightened by Glory’s constant queries about her missing sister.

Culled from Daily Times

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