Two sentenced to death for ritual killing

From Vanguard
By Chidi Nkwopara

June 12, 2006—OWERRI—AN Mgbidi High Court presided over by Justice Nonyerem Okoronkwo, has sentenced Obinna Onyema and Benjamin Arizo to death for killing one Damian Okorocha for ritual purposes, on October 8, 2002 at Ubaha Etiti Omuma in Oru Judicial Division.Justice Okoronkwo in the judgment held that “the prosecution has proved the charge of murder against the first and second accused persons in relation to the deceased, Damian Okorocha”.

While saying that he had regard to the provisions of Section 177(1) and (2) of the Evidence Act, Justice Okoronkwo also ruled “the confessional statements find some corroboration in the evidence of the accused persons themselves and in the evidence of PW2, PW3, PW4 and Exhibit "C”. Continuing, Justice Okoronkwo recalled that a charge of conspiracy to underscore the point that the two accused persons were in concert in perpetrating the heinous act, stressing that he agreed and upheld the submission of the prosecuting counsel that once conspiracy is proved to exist, evidence admissible against one conspirator is also admissible against the other or others.”

The joinder of count 1 on the information of a charge of conspiracy with a charge of murder is by Section339 of the Criminal Procedure Act prohibited. Accordingly, the charge of conspiracy in count 1 is struck out”, Okoronkwo said. Vanguard recalls that the accused persons on July 19, 2004, pleaded not guilty to the charges preferred against them when the matter was first mentioned in court, while the prosecution called four witnesses and tendered documentary exhibits during the hearing of the matter.

Similarly, a medical report presented to the court by Dr. Raphael Egejuru, a medical pathologist in the Federal Medical Centre, Owerri, certified the cause of death to be “respiratory failure due to strangulation consequent upon a constricting force round the neck”.Concerning the alibi raised by the first accused person that he was in Lagos, the prosecuting counsel,Mrs. I. I. Amadi, told the court that where an alibi is raised for the first time in the witness box, the court is entitled not to consider it.