Headline

Oromoni: Black Substance Found In Victim’s Intestine, LASUTH Lacks Testing Lab, Says Pathologist

Published

4 years ago

February 9, 2022

A pathologist at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, Dr Sunday Soyemi, on Tuesday, said a blackish substance was found in the intestine of 12-year-old Sylvester Oromoni (Junior), a pupil of Dowen College, Lekki, Lagos, who died in controversial circumstances.

Soyemi stated this while being cross-examined by the family’s lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), before the coroner inquest set up to unravel the cause of the boy’s death.

The news of Sylvester’s death went viral following a social media post by his cousin, Perry Oromoni, who alleged that some senior pupils of the college beat him up in his hostel because he refused to join a cult.

But the school denied the claim, stating that the boy complained of leg pains following an injury he sustained while playing football.

A coroner inquest was subsequently set up to look into the circumstances surrounding the death.

At the Tuesday proceedings, Soyemi, while being led in evidence by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Babajide Martins, said the first autopsy carried out on the corpse was botched because the process was not properly done.

Soyemi, who faulted the first autopsy report, noted that some organs that would have revealed whether the victim died of ingestion of a poisonous substance were not cut by the first pathologist.

According to Soyemi, the deceased had a generalised infection that could have been treated with massive doses of antibiotics, intravenous fluid and blood transfusion.

He said, “Following the order for a post-mortem examination issued by the coroner, I conducted a second autopsy on the body of the deceased. An initial interim report was issued and finally, a full autopsy report was also issued to the office of the coroner.

“Prior to the conduct of the autopsy, I did a total body radiograph to rule out any skeletal injury, that is, fracture; none was found and the radiologist confirmed there was no fracture. Before I started the autopsy, the doctor who conducted the first autopsy was in attendance and he was in attendance throughout. So, I observed that the autopsy was not properly done. All that was not properly done is documented in my statement.

“For example, at the first autopsy, the pathologist never opened the oesophagus; the oesophagus is the food pipe. He also did not open the trachea; it is the air path through which we breathe. These are vital things that he should not have missed out.

“He concluded his report as chemical intoxication. For one to be intoxicated with a chemical, that chemical has to pass through the oesophagus, that is the food path. For someone that has not opened the food path, he cannot talk about chemical intoxication. A chemical that would be injurious to one, after ingestion, should cause injuries on the oesophagus because it would pass through the oesophagus, so it should never have been anything near chemical intoxication if he did not open the oesophagus.

“He also did not open the lungs; he did not detach the lungs from the heart. If he had done that and waded the lungs, it would tell him that something is wrong with the lungs. These are some of the many things he did not do. He did a botched autopsy and this was the cause of the controversy surrounding this case.”

However, Soyemi, during cross-examination by Falana, told the inquest that he did not carry out any test on the black substance found in the deceased’s intestine on the grounds that LASUTH did not have a laboratory to test poisonous substances.

The PUNCH reports that he further admitted that the substance found in the intestine could have been anything as it was not tested to confirm what it was.

Soyemi also denied authorising a television interview granted by the doctor representing Dowen College, Dr Iwikwe Isabella, who spoke on the autopsy findings.

He said, “That’s not the practice. I was embarrassed when the report was being discussed on TV. I was embarrassed in the sense that she didn’t perform the autopsy; she observed all through. It’s not the normal practice even if you have done the autopsy.”

Soyemi, who noted that his findings showed that the deceased had lobar pneumonia, infection of the lung, liver, and also infection on the right ankle, maintained that the deceased died of septicaemia.

He explained that if the deceased was physically assaulted or beaten, all the exposed areas would show haemorrhage.

Earlier, the presiding magistrate, Mikhail Kadiri, had a heated argument with Falana when the counsel objected to a question the director of public prosecutions asked Soyemi.

Falana noted that Kadiri was fond of saying the inquest was not a regular court at his convenience.

However, the duo later settled the matter amicably.

Headline

Afghanistan’s Taliban Release US Citizen

Published

1 day ago

September 28, 2025

Editor

Afghanistan’s Taliban government released an American citizen from detention on Sunday, a week after freeing an elderly British couple.

In a statement, the ministry identified the detainee as Amir Amiri and said he had been handed over to Adam Boehler, Washington’s special envoy on hostages.

Boehler made a rare visit to Kabul earlier this month to discuss the possibility of a prisoner exchange with the Taliban government.

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan released an American citizen named Amir Amiri from prison today,” the Foreign Ministry on X, using the official name for the government.

“The Afghan government does not view the issues of citizens from a political angle and makes it clear that ways can be found to resolve issues through diplomacy.”

Little is known about Amiri’s case, as it has not been widely reported.

An official with knowledge of the release said Amiri, who is 36, “had been detained in Afghanistan since December 2024”.

The official added that Amiri would stop briefly in Doha, Qatar for medical checks before continuing back to the United States.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcomed the release of Amiri, said he had been “wrongfully detained” in Afghanistan, and thanked Qatar for helping to get him freed.

President Donald Trump “has made it clear we will not stop until every American unjustly detained abroad is back home,” Rubio wrote on X.

In January two Americans were freed in exchange for an Afghan fighter, Khan Mohammed, who was convicted of narco-terrorism in the United States.

Another American, airline mechanic George Glezmann, was freed after more than two years in detention during a March visit to Kabul by Boehler.

At least one other US citizen, Mahmood Habibi, is being held in Afghanistan. The United States is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture.

The Taliban authorities deny any involvement in his 2022 disappearance.

Just a week ago, Britons Peter Reynolds, 80, and his wife Barbie, 76, were released from a Kabul prison after almost eight months in detention. The Taliban authorities did not say why they were detained.

The couple was arrested in February and first held in a maximum security facility, “then in underground cells, without daylight, before being transferred” to the intelligence services in Kabul, UN experts have said.

The couple married in Kabul in 1970 and have spent almost two decades living in Afghanistan, running educational programmes for women and children. They also became Afghan citizens.

All the releases have been mediated by Qatar.

Both the US and the UK, like many other Western nations, warn against all travel to Afghanistan.

Russia is the only country to have officially recognised the Taliban government, which has imposed a strict version of Islamic law and been accused of sweeping human rights violations.

Dozens of foreign nationals have been arrested since the group returned to power in August 2021, when most embassies withdrew their diplomatic presence.

The Taliban government says it wants to have good relations with other countries, notably the United States, despite the 20-year war against US-led forces.

Headline

One Dead, Several Injured After US Shooting, Fire At Mormon Church

Published

1 day ago

September 28, 2025

Editor

One person was killed and several others injured Sunday after a shooter targeted a Mormon church in the US state of Michigan, where the building was also set on fire, authorities said.

The suspect, a 40-year-old man from a nearby town, was shot dead by law enforcement after the attack, police said, without specifying any possible motive.

President Donald Trump called the shooting “horrendous” and said on his Truth Social platform it “appears to be yet another targeted attack on Christians in the United States of America.”

Images from the scene showed emergency services escorting people on stretchers and a large plume of dark smoke at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc Township.

Headline

Head Of Mormon Church Is Dead

Published

1 day ago

September 28, 2025

Editor

Russell Nelson, who headed the Mormon church since 2018, died on Saturday night at age 101, the church announced.

“With sorrow we announce that Russell M. Nelson, beloved President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, passed away peacefully… at his home in Salt Lake City,” it said in a statement, using the church’s official name.

The former heart surgeon was “the oldest president in the history of the Church,” the statement added, without specifying a cause of death.

Utah Republican senator Mike Lee lauded Nelson as a “bold, visionary leader prepared by God to testify of Jesus Christ in the very times in which we now live.”

Nelson became the 17th president of the Church in January 2018 at age 93, succeeding Thomas Monson.

Before becoming president, Nelson successfully pushed for the church to label same-sex married couples as “apostates” and bar their children under the age of 18 from religious rites, including baptisms — though that policy was scrapped after he took on the role.

He also broke with his predecessors and cautioned against using shorthands “LDS” or “Mormons” to refer to the church.

Nelson’s successor will be chosen after his funeral by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who like the church’s president are considered prophets by believers.

The religious leader is survived by his wife, eight of his children, 57 grandchildren and more than 167 great-grandchildren, according to the church.

Founded in 1830, the Mormon church considers itself a Christian body, but bases its doctrines on the Book of Mormon, a text purporting to contain a fuller version of the words of Jesus Christ than that recorded in the Bible.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claims a total membership of more than 17.5 million people.