Kidnap gang is jailed for 28 years over victim’s car ordeal
‘They were all kicking and punching him’
A KIDNAP gang whose naked victim fought his way out of the car boot they had locked him in was yesterday jailed for a total of more than 28 years.
Nigerian-born Emmanuel Chidubem Emmanuel struggled with his captors as they tried to force him back into the vehicle in front of shocked passers-by after he sabotaged the BMW 5 series saloon.
The garage owner, who had been beaten, trussed up and had money stolen from a bank account, accessed a fuse panel in the boot of the car after freeing himself of his bonds and brought it to a halt.
He had been driven around south Edinburgh for about an hour before managing to make his escape in front of members of the public, who raised the alarm and took mobile phone footage of his struggle.
Sanchez Facey, 23, Glen Elamo, 20, and Arnold Mukueto, 22, who were all earlier convicted of assaulting and abducting Mr Emmanuel, 27, and illegally transferring money from his online account, were jailed for seven years each.
A fourth gang member, Hooman Sojoodi, 21, was jailed for sevenand-a-half years. He had been freed on bail twice by courts in Aberdeen the month before the kidnapping.
Judge Lady Carmichael told the men at the High Court in Edinburgh that Mr Emmanuel had been ‘severely injured’. She said: ‘You were confronted by a number of members of the public and their presence and actions by calling the police ultimately brought this incident to an end.’
Lady Carmichael said their motive did not emerge in evidence at the earlier trial but it was clear the gang had wanted to steal money from their victim, who had been visiting the city.
She added: ‘It is utterly appalling and unacceptable that you should resort to the violent and lawless conduct of which you have been convicted.’
Mr Emmanuel, from Stevenage, Hertfordshire, managed to open the boot of the BMW in Buckstone Road.
Social worker Julie Arbuckle, 47, who saw the incident on February 10 this year, began sounding her horn and called police. She said: ‘They were all kicking and punching him and trying to get him into the car. At one point the naked guy, they had got him in the car but he got out the other door.’
She said she shouted at the attackers to get off him because the police were coming and they began to flee the scene.
Sojoodi, formerly of Enfield, North London; Facey, of Edmonton, North London; Elamo, who is serving a jail sentence in England for drugs; and Mukueto, a former semi-professional footballer from London, who had moved to Aberdeen, had all denied the assault and abduction.
Elamo was told that his latest prison sentence would begin at the expiry of his current jail term next year.