Man linked to torso boy

A child trafficker who may have smuggled the Thames "torso boy" into Britain was facing jail today.

Kingsley Ojo, 30, was part of a trafficking ring which smuggled hundreds of children into the country.

The case is the first major successful prosecution by detectives involved in the ground-breaking inquiry into the ritual murder of the five-year-old they named Adam. His limbless and headless body was found in the Thames in September 2001.

Detectives believe Ojo may hold the key to Adam's killing. When arrested he claimed to be Mousa Kamara from Sierra Leone, but detectives established he was a Nigerian from Benin City, home town of Adam.

Ojo's network smuggled African children into Europe to be used as domestic slaves, for benefit fraud or the sex trade.

In his Hackney flat police found a video depicting a ritual murder with a man holding a basin containing a decapitated head.

They also found a "bizarre voodoo artefact" - the remains of the skull of a grasscutter rat common in Nigeria which had been skewered with a staple and wrapped in black thread.

Ojo, who used at least 12 identities, pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court today to obtaining a false British passport and driving licence and assisting two illegal immigrants into the UK.

The court heard Ojo obtained a false passport in the name of a dead child, Kieran Bourne, and used the identity to travel to Naples, using Easyjet flights, to bring back illegal immigrants and

supply them with false documents.

His successful prosecution marks an important success for the Scotland Yard team investigating the case that the FBI once said could never be solved.

With few initial clues, pioneering forensic work established the boy came from a 100-mile coastal strip around Benin City.

Other tests by scientists at Kew found he had been poisoned 48 hours before his death with the carabar bean, which would have left him paralysed but conscious while his throat was cut.

He had been fed with a potion including bone matter and gold and sand, some of which was found in Ojo's London flat. His torso had been clothed in a pair of bright orange shorts then placed in the Thames.

Detectives travelled to South Africa, Nigeria, Germany, Ireland and the US in the hunt for the gang. They consulted experts in African black magic, known as muti, and even enlisted Nelson Mandela for a television appeal.

Ojo was arrested after raids on 20 addresses across London by Scotland Yard's Operation Maxim task force that tackles immigration crime.

Police have established that Ojo was in London at the time of Adam's murder and, more significantly, had links with a woman arrested in Scotland in connection with the murder. Asylum seeker Joyce Osagiede, 32, was held in Glasgow but has since been deported to Nigeria.

Her estranged husband, Sam Onojhighovie, 37, was held in Dublin this year and is awaiting extradition to Germany on human trafficking charges.

Clothes in her flat were found to have come from the same shop in Germany as the orange shorts found on Adam's body.

She has since admitted to police in Nigeria that she knew Adam had been killed at an address in Lewisham. She visited Ojo at his address in London, though when arrested he denied knowing her.

A TEENAGE girl was used as bait to lure a businessman into a shotgun ambush by two directors he had sacked, an Old Bailey jury heard today.

The head of Premier Limousine Services, Romeo Atako, was shot three times but survived and was able to name his two former colleagues as the gunmen who were seeking revenge, said prosecutor John Hilton QC.

He told the court financial director Colin Crawley, 28, and fellow director Dwayne Ramsey, 23, were dressed in boiler suits with their faces masked when they opened fire. They had armed themselves with a shortened shotgun and a revolver.

They used Catherine Tye, 18, to befriend Mr Atako, 28 with the promise of a date, but when he left home to meet her Crawley and Ramsey shot him.

Tye, of Sidcup, Crawley, of Walworth, and Ramsey, of Croydon, have been charged with conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause g r ievous bodily harm between October 2002 and March 2003. Crawley has also been charged with possession of a prohibited weapon and ammunition. All three have pleaded not guilty.

Mr Hilton told the court that Ramsey, Crawley and Mr Atako ran the stretch limousine hire business together when Mr Atako found out the other two had been abusing the company's credit card and terminated their employment. The trial continues.