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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

Voters In Turkish Cyprus Reject Erdogan-backed Leader In Presidential Election

Published

12 hours ago

October 19, 2025

Editor

The breakaway territory of northern Cyprus has voted overwhelmingly to replace its outgoing leader, who had the backing of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, election officials said Sunday.

Almost 63 per cent of voters in the territory, whose claim to statehood is recognised only by Turkey, backed former prime minister Tufan Erhurman as next president at the expense of Turkey’s pick, Ersin Tatar, who polled 35 per cent.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when a Turkish invasion following a coup in Nicosia backed by Greece’s then-military junta eventually led to the creation of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in 1983.

The internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus, a member of the European Union, controls the island’s majority Greek Cypriot south.

While Tatar has toed the Turkish line of two separate states on Cyprus, Erhurman has indicated he favours a federal state that would include both sides of the island.

Erhurman said there were no losers in the election and that “the Turkish Cypriot people have won together”.

Headline

Thieves Steal French Crown Jewels From Louvre In Daytime Raid

Published

12 hours ago

October 19, 2025

Editor

Thieves wielding power tools raided the Louvre in broad daylight Sunday, taking just seven minutes to grab some of France’s priceless crown jewels, but dropping a gem-encrusted crown as they fled, officials and sources said.

Authorities recovered the 19th-century crown — damaged — near the museum.

The spectacular heist, one of several to target French museums in recent months, forced the closure of the Louvre, the world’s most-visited museum and home to the Mona Lisa.

President Emmanuel Macron posted on social media that “everything is being done” to catch the perpetrators and recover the stolen items.

Police are looking for a team of four thieves, Paris’s chief prosecutor Laure Beccuau told the BFMTV channel.

Soldiers patrolled the famed glass pyramid entrance, while evacuated visitors, tourists and passersby were kept at a distance behind police tape.

It was “like a Hollywood movie”, one American tourist, Talia Ocampo, told AFP.

It was “crazy” and “something we won’t forget — we could not go to the Louvre because there was a robbery”, she said.

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A culture ministry statement said eight items of jewellery had been stolen from the Gallerie Apollon that houses the French crown jewels.

“Two high-security display cases were targeted, and eight objects of invaluable cultural heritage were stolen,” said the ministry statement.

They included the emerald-and-diamond necklace that Napoleon gave his wife Empress Marie Louise, and the crown of Empress Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III.

Beccuau said the thieves had threatened museum guards with the angle grinders they used to break into the jewellery cases.

A team of 60 investigators was working on the case, she added.

– ‘Unsellable’ –

The robbers used a powered, extendable ladder of the sort used to hoist furniture into buildings to get into a gilded gallery housing the crown jewels, said officials.

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Eugenie’s crown was recovered after the thieves dropped it as they made their escape, said the culture ministry statement.

The crown, featuring golden eagles, is covered in 1,354 diamonds and 56 emeralds, according to the museum’s website.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said the thieves had used the furniture hoist to steal “priceless” items from two displays in the museum’s “Galerie d’Apollon” (“Apollo’s Gallery”).

The items stolen also included a necklace from the sapphire jewellery of Queen Marie Amelie and Queen Hortense and a pair of emerald earrings that once belonged to Marie Louise, said the culture ministry.

The thieves arrived between 9:30 and 9:40 am (0730 and 0740 GMT), the source following the case said, shortly after the museum opened to the public at 9:00 am.

One police source said the robbers had ridden up on a scooter armed with angle grinders and used the furniture hoist to get inside the Louvre.

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A witness named Samir, who was riding a bicycle nearby at the time, told the TF1 channel that he saw two men “get on the hoist, break the window and enter… it took 30 seconds”.

He said he saw four of them leave on scooters, and he called the police.

The robbery happened just 800 metres (half a mile) from Paris police headquarters.

The Louvre’s management told AFP it had closed because it wanted to “preserve traces and clues for the investigation”.

The director of the Drouot auction house told the LCI broadcaster he feared the jewels would be broken down into gems and precious metal to be sold, as they would be “completely unsellable in their current state”.

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– ‘Great vulnerability’ –

The Louvre used to be the seat of French kings until Louis XIV abandoned it for Versailles in the late 1600s.

It is the world’s most visited museum, last year welcoming nine million people to its extensive hallways and galleries.

Nunez, the capital’s former police chief who became interior minister last week, said he was aware of “a great vulnerability” in museum security in France.

Last month, criminals used an angle grinder to break into Paris’s Natural History Museum, making off with gold samples worth 600,000 euros ($700,000).

Thieves earlier in the month stole two dishes and a vase from a museum in the central city of Limoges, the losses estimated at 6.5 million euros.

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Last year, four thieves stole snuffboxes and other artifacts from another Paris museum, breaking into a display case with axes and baseball bats.

But thefts from the Louvre have been rarer.

A painting by French painter Camille Corot disappeared from the museum in 1998 and has never been recovered.

In 1911, an Italian worker at the museum stole the Mona Lisa, but it was recovered and today sits behind security glass.

Macron in January pledged the Louvre would be redesigned after its director voiced alarm about dire conditions inside. On Sunday, he said that that project included reinforced security.

Dati said Sunday that new security measures would be part of the renovation plan.

AFP

Headline

Pope Leo Creates Seven New Saints In Historic Vatican Ceremony

Published

13 hours ago

October 19, 2025

Editor

Bells rang out Sunday over St Peter’s Square as Pope Leo XIV created seven new saints, including the first from Papua New Guinea, an archbishop killed in the Armenian genocide, and a Venezuelan “doctor of the poor.”

Also canonised during the solemn ceremony, under sunny skies in the vast plaza on World Mission Day, were three nuns who dedicated their lives to the poor and sick and former Satanic priest Bartolo Longo.

The Italian lawyer born in 1841 subsequently rejoined the Catholic faith and went on to found the Pontifical Shrine of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary of Pompeii.

“Today we have before us seven witnesses, the new Saints, who, with God’s grace, kept the lamp of faith burning,” Leo told an audience the Vatican estimated at some 55,000 people.

“May their intercession assist us in our trials and their example inspire us in our shared vocation to holiness,” he said during his homily.

Huge portraits of the seven were unfurled from windows over the square as Leo, the first US pope, exited St Peter’s Basilica dressed in a ceremonial white cassock with a white mitre on his head, preceded by white-clad bishops and cardinals.

Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints—the Vatican department charged with beatification and canonisation—read aloud profiles of the seven to applause from the crowd.

With Leo’s reading of the canonisation formula, they were officially declared saints.

In his homily, Leo described the new saints as either “martyrs for their faith,” “evangelisers and missionaries,” “charismatic founders” of congregations, or “benefactors of humanity.”

The rite of canonisation was the second for the former Robert Prevost since he was made leader of the Catholic Church on May 8.

Last month, he proclaimed as saints Italians Carlo Acutis—a teenager dubbed “God’s Influencer” who spread the faith online before his death at age 15 in 2006—and Pier Giorgio Frassati, considered a model of charity who died in 1925, aged 24.

Canonisation is the final step towards sainthood in the Catholic Church, following beatification.

Three conditions are required—most crucially that the individual has performed at least two miracles. He or she must be deceased for at least five years and have led an exemplary Christian life.

Martyrs, humanitarians

Along with Longo, those made saints Sunday were Peter To Rot, a lay catechist from Papua New Guinea killed during the Japanese occupation during World War II, Armenian bishop Ignazio Choukrallah Maloyan, killed by Turkish forces in 1915, and Venezuela’s Jose Gregorio Hernandez Cisneros, a layman who died in 1919, whom the late Pope Francis called a “doctor close to the weakest.”

Also from Venezuela was Maria Carmen Elena Rendiles Martinez, a nun born without a left arm who overcame her disability to found the Congregation of the Servants of Jesus before her death in 1977. She becomes the South American country’s first female saint.

The Italian nuns canonised are Vincenza Maria Poloni, the 19th-century founder of Verona’s Institute of the Sisters of Mercy, which cares primarily for the sick in hospitals, and Maria Troncatti of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians.

In the 1920s, Troncatti arrived in Ecuador to devote her life to helping its indigenous population.

AFP