Self-Styled Pastor Jailed 3 Years For Possession Of 2 Human Hearts

Solomon Bello, a self-proclaimed pastor who is 35 years old and lives in Akure, the capital of Ondo state, was given a three-year prison sentence by a Magistrates' Court.

Bello was charged with two counts of conspiracy and having human parts without permission.

The Chief Magistrate, F.J. Ajiboye, sentenced the convict to 36 months in the Olokuta correctional facility. He said that the convict was found guilty of all the charges against him and that he should serve the time to stop others from humiliating the dead.

The prosecutor, Abayomi Jejeniwa, read the facts of the case and said that the convict "conspired with others at large on January 14, 2022, at around 7:00 a.m. in the Morayo Street Ayeyemi area of Ondo to make a criminal charm with human parts."

Jejeniwa also said that the convict had some things that he shouldn't have had, like a clear plastic container with clean slices of human heart tissue from two adults' hearts, two bone structures from the neck, and the vertebrae colon.

In the prisoner's possession was also a wooden box with different criminal charms and kola nuts in it.

"When the convict was caught, he couldn't tell the police a good story about how he did it," Jejeniwa said.

He said that the crime broke sections 213(b) and 516 of the Criminal Code, Cap. 370, Vol. I, Laws of Ondo State, 2006. To prove his point, the prosecutor called three witnesses and used the items found as evidence.

The prosecutor asked the court to punish him in a way that would stop other people from doing the same thing.

In his defense, the convict's lawyer, S. Aliu, said the accusations against him were false and that the two hearts and bones found in his possession were from pigs that he had bought.

He said that when the pig's heart was soaked in water, it looked like a human heart.

But in his ruling, Ajiboye gave the convict a one-year prison sentence for the first count and a two-year prison sentence for the second count, with no choice of a fine.

Image: Representative Purpose