Adeleke Adelani has been sentenced to over 13 years in an Irish prison for using threats to force his pregnant former partner to take abortion pills against her will.
Adeleke Adelani, a 28-year-old Nigerian national residing in Ireland, has been sentenced to more than 13 years in prison following the unlawful termination of his former partner’s pregnancy. The Letterkenny Circuit Court heard that on Valentine’s Day in 2020, Adelani lured the woman, who was nine weeks pregnant, to his home under the guise of discussing their future, only to threaten her and force her to ingest five misoprostol tablets. Judge John Alymer sentenced Adelani to 11 years for the unlawful termination, with the final two years suspended and a concurrent five-year sentence for assault causing harm. The defendant, who was already serving a seven-year term for an unrelated offense, pleaded guilty shortly before his trial was set to begin.
In a poignant victim impact statement delivered during the sentencing on Thursday, the woman described the profound loss of her safety and her child, stating, “When he wrongfully imprisoned me and caused the termination of my nine-week pregnancy, he took far more than my freedom. He took my child… He took a future that I had already begun to plan and love.” Despite the trauma, she noted that she had chosen to forgive him to prevent the act from “continuing to control” her life. Adelani, in a letter read to the court, expressed that he was “heavily apologising” and taking full responsibility for the pain inflicted. The court’s decision marks a significant legal conclusion to a case that has drawn considerable attention to reproductive rights and domestic violence in Ireland.