A Dutse Senior Magistrates’ Court, Abuja, on Friday, remanded two under age students in police custody for alleged housebreaking and theft.
The two are charged with housebreaking and theft.
The suspects, who reside separately at Dawaki village, Abuja, and Suleja in Niger State, pleaded guilty to the three-count charge and promised to be of good behaviour.
The Senior Magistrate, Chukwuemeka Nweke, remanded the accused after they pleaded guilty to the charges against them.
He ordered that they should be remanded in police custody until October 8, pending their conviction having earlier pleaded guilty.
Earlier, the police prosecutor, Cpl. Isaac Kaura, prayed the court to try the accused, who are juveniles, under Section 71 of the Penal Code.
The section provides that if an accused, who is below eighteenth is convicted by a court the case should be tried in accordance with the children and young persons’ law.
He told the court that on Sept. 26, at about noon, information was received that three men suspected to be a gang of thieves were operating in the neighbourhood of Plot A27, Dawaki Extension, Layout, Abuja.
Kaura told the court that some neighbours raised an alarm that two suspected thieves had broken into a house belonging to one Barrister Samuel Eleojo, with the assistant of one Majeed, who is now at large.
“While the accused were stealing from the apartment, one Sgt. Dambak Meshak, and two others from the Dawaki Police Outstation came to the scene of the crime.”
“They arrested the accused in the apartment, while Majeed escaped,” the police prosecutor said.
He told the court that when the accused were arrested, they were found in possession of six different types of wrist watches, two cell phones and one sunny midget recorder, valued at N200 000.
Kaura told the court that during investigation, the accused confessed to the crime.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) gathered that the elder brother to one of the accused, who pleaded for his brother, said that he had always been a problem to the family.
He told the court that though the family had provided everything for him, “he refused to change from his evil ways.”
