Members of a kidnapping gang were jailed for more than 28 years yesterday.
Nigerian-born Emmanuel Chidubem Emmanuel fought his way out of a car boot, naked, and struggled with his captors as they tried to force him back into the vehicle in front of shocked passersbys, including mums on the school run.
The garage owner, who had been beaten and robbed, accessed a fuse panel in the boot of the vehicle after he had managed to free himself of his bonds and brought the car to a halt.
He was driven around south Edinburgh for about an hour before he managed to make his dramatic escape.
Yesterday Sanchez Facey, 23, Glen Elamo, 20, and Arnold Mukueto, 22, were each jailed for seven years for their part in the kidnapping.
The fourth gang member, Hooman Sojoodi, 21, was jailed for seven-and-a-half years. He had been freed on bail twice by courts in Aberdeen the month before the kidnapping.
Lady Carmichael told the group – who were found guilty after trial last month – that Mr Emmanuel had been “severely injured” during the terrifying offence on February 10.
The judge described it as an “utterly appalling and unacceptable” crime.
During the ordeal, Mr Emmanuel was punched and kicked, hit with a blunt weapon, stripped, blindfolded and trussed up at a house in the Gilmerton area of Edinburgh while the gang robbed his online bank account.
They then threw him in the boot of the car and drove around the city before Mr Emmanuel managed to disable the car and make his escape.
A passing social worker then raised the alarm.
Mr Emmanuel, 27, from Stevenage, in Hertfordshire, had been visiting the city to see a friend.
He told the court he struggled to remember certain things since the attack, but insisted he had not owed the gang any money.
Sojoodi, formerly of Enfield, North London, Facey of Edmonton, North London, Elamo, who is serving a jail sentence in England for drugs and Mukueto, a former semi-professional footballer from London, who had moved to Aberdeen, had all denied the assault and abduction.
But forensic evidence from fingerprints and DNA linked them to the BMW and the house where the attack began.
