The court of appeal sitting in Akure, the Ondo state capital, has sentenced Shittu Isiaka, a lecturer at the College of Health Technology, Ijero-Ekiti, to death by hanging after finding him guilty of armed robbery.
Omolara Adejumo, the presiding justice, delivered the verdict after the court found Isiaka culpable of conspiracy to commit armed robbery and armed robbery.
John Joshua, the prosecution counsel, told the court that the incident occurred on July 5, 2017, along Ibuji on the Akure-Ilesha expressway.
Joshua said Isiaka and other accomplices – who are still at large – robbed Olatunji Olowoyeye, a commercial driver, of his Nissan Cabstar vehicle with registration number XJ 214 KTU at gunpoint.
While testifying, Olowoyeye told the court that he knew the defendant before the incident.
He said Isiaka and two other men had hired him in Ilesa to transport cocoa beans from Igbara-Oke for N20,000.
According to him, the men paid N8,000 upfront and promised to pay the balance after the trip.
Olowoyeye said he became suspicious when the passengers asked him to drive the vehicle into the bush near a primary school at Ibuji.
He told the court that one of the men sitting beside him suddenly brought out a gun while Isiaka sat in the front seat.
The victim said the attackers dragged him out of the vehicle, collected the key, his phone and cash, tied his hands and legs and abandoned him in the bush.
Olowoyeye further alleged that the defendant injected him with a substance before tying him to a tree.
According to him, he later rolled through the bush and reached the highway, where police patrol officers rescued him and took him to a hospital.
Olowoyeye told the court that he passed bloody urine for several days and spent about 15 days receiving medical treatment.
Kehinde Omotosho, an inspector and police witness, told the court that highway patrol officers brought the victim to the Igbara-Oke police station, where he made a statement implicating Isiaka.
During the trial, Isiaka denied the allegations.
The suspect told the court that he was not involved in the robbery and also denied injecting the victim with any substance.
The defendant argued that he was not a medical practitioner and had no licence to administer injections.
He further told the court that investigators failed to present any syringe or item allegedly used in the crime, adding that no medical report was tendered to support the victim’s claim.
In the judgement, the judge held that the prosecution failed to establish the offence of endangering life as required under section 135(1) of the Evidence Act.
The judge also noted that there were no eyewitness accounts of the alleged injection and no medical report to support the victim’s claim.
She said it would be unsafe to rely solely on the testimonies of the victim and another witness without any supporting medical evidence.
The judge consequently acquitted Isiaka on the third count but held that the prosecution established sufficient evidence linking the defendant to the robbery.
Adejumo convicted Isiaka of conspiracy to commit armed robbery and armed robbery, sentencing him to life imprisonment for conspiracy and death by hanging for armed robbery.
“The sentence of the court upon you is that you be hanged by the neck until you are dead,” the judge said.
(The CABLE)
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