court
By Chidi Nkwopara, OWERRI.

An Imo State High Court, sitting in Okigwe and presided over by Justice Ben C. Iheka, has sentenced Ifeanyi Ezenwa alias Drogba to death for murder.

Delivering judgment in suit number HO/4C/2016, which lasted over 95 minutes, Justice Iheka however found Uzuegbu Success not guilty of the offence.

“I find the second accused (Uzuegbu Success) not guilty of the offence charged and I do not convict him. The second accused person is accordingly discharged and acquitted”, Justice Iheka said.

After recounting the pieces of evidence on both sides, the exhibits tendered and the written submissions filed by the prosecution and defence counsel, Iheka described the evidence of Ifeanyi Ezenwa as “a total somersault from his confessional statement to police”.

“The position of the law in such a situation where an accused gives evidence inconsistent with or in retraction of his confessional statement to the police, is well settled to the effect that the evidence of the accused is to be treated as unreliable”, Justice Iheka said.

It was the considered opinion of the Judge that the evidence of the fifth witness, Dr. Omende Kelechi, to the effect that the deceased died of gunshot wound, was not challenged.

“These unchallenged evidences are very consistent with and corroborative of the first accused (Ifeanyi Ezenwa) statement in Exhibit D. It is settled law that corroborative evidence, however slight, would sustain the veracity of a confessional statement”, the Judge said.

Justice Iheka equally punctured other issues raised by the defence counsel and thereafter held that the prosecution proved the charge against the first accused beyond reasonable doubt.

“The act of the first accused was with the intention of causing the death of the said Ndubuisi Nwankwo. The sentence of the Court upon you, the first accused, is that you, Ifeanyi Ezenwa alias Drogba, be hanged by the neck until you be dead, and may the Lord have mercy on your soul”, Justice Iheka said.