Court admits 69 gay wedding suspects to N500,000 bail

Sixty-nine LGBT suspects who were detained on August 27 during a gay wedding ceremony in Ekpan Community, Uvwie Local Government Area, Delta State, have been released on bail.

In Warri on Tuesday, the suspects’ attorney, Mr. Ochuko Ohimor, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that they had been granted bail with a combined N500,000 and two sureties.

The sureties must be residents in the court’s Effurun jurisdiction, according to Ohimor.

The defendants, who were previously arraigned on September 4, must sign an undertaking at the State High Court of Justice, Effurun, in the Uvwie LGA, he continued.

“The suspects were granted bail at a cost of N500,000 and two sureties each. The sureties must reside within the Effurun jurisdiction,” Ohimor told NAN.

Vincent Orarumen, the police prosecutor, had contested the bail requirement, but their attorney contended that the suspected crime was not a capital offense.

NAN reports that on August 29 at the Ekpan Police Station, at the request of Mr. Wale Abass, the Delta State Commissioner of Police (CP), the accused were paraded before reporters.

They were detained while holding a gay wedding ceremony that the Ekpan Division’s crack team of police officers dubbed the “all-white party.”

The CP promised to punish the suspects in accordance with Nigeria’s Anti-Gay Law, which, in his opinion, forbids same-sex unions in the nation, as he paraded the suspects.

“I can guarantee that they will be charged to court. We are not taking it lightly. It is a clear case, though, they are still presumed innocent until proven otherwise by the competent court,” he said. (NAN)