{"id":63340,"date":"2025-03-26T13:43:22","date_gmt":"2025-03-26T13:43:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=63340"},"modified":"2025-03-26T13:43:22","modified_gmt":"2025-03-26T13:43:22","slug":"troops-arrest-two-over-murder-of-catholic-priest-in-kaduna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/03\/26\/troops-arrest-two-over-murder-of-catholic-priest-in-kaduna\/","title":{"rendered":"Troops Arrest Two Over Murder of Catholic Priest in Kaduna"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Patrick Idowu<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Troops of Operation Safe Haven have arrested two suspects linked to the gruesome killing of Rev. Fr. Sylvester Okechukwu, a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Kafanchan, Kaduna State.<\/p>\n<p>The suspects were apprehended during a military raid at a settlement in Warsa Piti community, Lere Local Government Area.<\/p>\n<p>Fr. Okechukwu was abducted from his residence in Tachira, Kaura Local Government Area on March 4 at about 9:15 p.m.<\/p>\n<p>His lifeless body was discovered the following day, sending shockwaves through the Catholic community and beyond.<\/p>\n<p>Maj. Samson Zhakom, Media Officer of Operation Safe Haven, confirmed the arrests in a statement released on Wednesday in Jos.<\/p>\n<p>He revealed that during interrogation, the prime suspect, a 33-year-old man, confessed to being contracted by a resident of the same house as the slain priest to carry out the kidnapping.<\/p>\n<p>The alleged mastermind was later arrested in Agwan Sarki, Tachira, during a follow-up operation.<\/p>\n<p>Zhakom stated that both suspects are in custody and undergoing further interrogation, while efforts are ongoing to apprehend others involved in the crime.<\/p>\n<p>The murder of Fr. Okechukwu has drawn widespread condemnation, with calls for swift justice and greater security measures to protect clergy and communities across Kaduna State.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Patrick Idowu Troops of Operation Safe Haven have arrested two suspects linked to the gruesome killing of Rev. Fr. Sylvester Okechukwu, a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Kafanchan, Kaduna State. The suspects were apprehended during a military raid at a settlement in Warsa Piti community, Lere Local Government Area. Fr. Okechukwu was abducted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":63341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-63340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63340"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63342,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63340\/revisions\/63342"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}