By Eunice Ovakpo
A Federal High Court in Asaba has adjourned till April ten this year for sentencing trial of a forty three -year old single mother, Christiana Jacob Uadiale over a six count charge bothering on trafficking of girls from Edo and Delta States for sexual exploitation, and receiving and harbouring persons for the purpose of prostitution in Dubai.
The court had in March last year delivered judgement that found the defendant guilty on each of the six counts of the charge in a trial in absentia that lasted one year as she allegedly absconded.
The trial judge, Justice FA Olubanjo had deferred the sentencing of the human trafficker pending when she was rearrested or submit her self to the custody of the Federal High Court Asaba.
The human trafficker who was first arraigned in February 2021 for the six counts of the charge, and pleaded not guilty to the charges, was consequently admitted to bail but failed to perfect the bail conditions, and fled.
She was however rearrested December last year and was kept at Agbor Correction Centre.
When the human trafficker was brought before the trial judge, Justice Olubanjo, at the Federal High Court Asaba, for sentencing, her counsel, Mr Emmanuel Afolabi pleaded for leniency in sentencing her on grounds that she was a first offender and also a single mother.
On the alleged jumping of bail by the human trafficker, her counsel told the judge that she was on a medical treatment at renal hospital at Dubai.
Counsel to NAPTIP, Tonia Mgbemeje told the judge that the trafficked girls who had arrived the country from Dubai, and reunited with their families, had suffered physical and psychological truma, and demanded compensation for the victims, and that the wrath of the law should be visited on the culprit .
Justice Olubanjo thereafter fixed April 10 for sentencing trial and mandated the counsel to NAPTIP and the convict counsel to produce a witness each.
