An Ekiti State High Court has sentenced a speaker, Shittu Isiaka, to death by hanging after convicting him of heist and conspiracy to dedicate armed robbery.
Justice Oladimeji Adejumo delivered the verdict after ruling that the prosecution effectively developed the offences of conspiracy and armed robbery against the offender beyond reasonable doubt.
Throughout the trial, the victim, determined as Olowoyeye, stated how he narrowly left death after the attack. He told the court that he rolled through the bush up until he reached a neighboring highway, where authorities patrol officers eventually saved him and took him to a hospital for treatment.
According to the victim, the injuries sustained during the event triggered him to pass bloody urine for numerous days, including that he spent about 15 days receiving medical care.
A cops witness, Inspector Kehinde Omotosho, also affirmed that highway patrol officers later brought the victim to the police station in Igbara-Oke, where he made a formal declaration linking Isiaka in the burglary.
However, the defendant rejected the claims, firmly insisting that he had no involvement in the criminal offense. Isiaka likewise declined claims that he injected the victim with any compound.
The lecturer argued before the court that he was not a physician and for that reason had no licence to administer injections. He even more competed that detectives failed to produce any syringe or item supposedly used in the act, worrying that no medical report existed to support the victim’s claim.
In her judgment, Justice Adejumo ruled that the prosecution failed to show the allegation of endangering life in line with Area 135( 1) of the Proof Act.
The judge observed that there were no eyewitnesses to the alleged injection which no medical report was tendered to support the victim’s claim. She added that it would be unsafe for the court to rely exclusively on the testimony of the victim and another witness without supporting medical proof.
As a result, the court acquitted Isiaka of the charge bordering on threatening life.
In spite of the acquittal on that count, the judge held that enough proof linked the offender to the heist.
Justice Adejumo therefore convicted Isiaka of conspiracy to dedicate armed robbery and heist, sentencing him to life imprisonment for conspiracy and death by hanging for heist.
“The sentence of the court upon you is that you be hanged by the neck until you are dead,” the judge pronounced.