A 63-year-old man, Alabi Ibrahim was yesterday arraigned before an Abeokuta High court for allegedly infecting his stepdaughter (names withheld) with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
The suspect, Ibrahim was said to have infected her 13-year old stepdaughter with the deadly virus after having sexual intercourse with her on several occasions.
The disclosure was made in a medical report tendered before Justice A. Akinremi by the Director of Public Prosecution, Mrs. O. Osunfisan who is the counsel to the plaintiff, Child Protection Network (CPN), a non-governmental organisation.
Osunfisan told the court that the victim fell ill and when she was taken to the hospital, it was discovered she had contracted HIV and upon interrogation, she confessed sleeping with her stepfather on many occasions.
During cross-examination, the accused admitted being an HIV positive but stoutly denied having carnal knowledge with the victim. He insisted that he did not know how the girl got infected with the
virus.
According to the suspect, what he knew was that, the girl had earlier been sexually abused by a relative of his wife before they got married, stressing that he resolved to send the girl away “when I discovered that she is wayward and corrupt.”
However, Osunfisan while presenting the medical report to the court which was conducted on November 2012, emphasised that the accused infected the girl with the virus after defiling her. She added that the accused gave the victim a separate room in the house so as to continue having regular sex with her.
According to her, the accused did not allow the siblings of the victim to share the same room with her, adding that on the first day of having sex with the victim, the accused covered her mouth with a pillow “so that she won’t shout or cry out for help.”
The victim, giving evidence, told the court that her stepfather truly had sex with her, having lured her into his bedroom, under the guise to help her supervise her school home work. She alleged that after having sex with her, the accused warned her not to tell anybody, “Else I will die.”
The counsel to the accused, Mr. Kizito Roberts, during cross-examination of one of the witnesses, Sakirat Mosaku told the court that she knew both the accused and his wife.
Mosaku added that all what she knew was that at a point in time, the accused’s wife came to tell her that her husband had sex with the victim.
The accused in his defence, told the court that his wife and the stepdaughter wanted to implicate him because he sent the girl away at a time, stating that the wife had also confessed to him that she was possessed with demons and had equally transferred the demons to her daughter.
The judge, Justice A. Akinremi in his ruling adjourned further hearing to Tuesday, July 7, 2015.
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