An Ekiti State High Court, Ado Ekiti Division, has sentenced one Ismaila Ojo to death by hanging for strangulating a man, Kareem Adu, to death over a motorcycle.
Ojo was charged to court and found guilty on a charge of murder, which was committed on May 13, 2018.
In the judgment, Justice Olusegun Ogunyemi said that having carefully considered and weighed the evidence adduced before the court, “it is my finding that the defendant caused the death of the deceased by holding and pressing his neck and throat.
“On the whole, I find the defendant guilty as charged. You (the defendant) are hereby sentenced to be hanged on the neck until you die,” the judge pronounced.
Earlier, the police prosecutor, Inspector Tunde Arowosola, had told the court that one Mrs. Agnes Adu came to the station with the complaint that her husband had been killed at Odo-Uro by one Ismaila Ojo over an ownership disputation and physical tussle in respect of a Hajue motorcycle.
Arowosola said the woman had alleged that the defendant (Ojo) strangulated the deceased to death.
Also, a police operative, Inspector Lasis Bashiru, who testified before the court, said, “The defendant confessed to the crime that on May 13, 2018, when he was taking his bath inside a bathroom, Adu (the deceased) came to take a motorcycle which he parked in front of his house.”
Bashiru added that “the defendant said that after finishing his bath, he went to Adu’s house and met him sleeping.
“The defendant, however, claimed that he neither intended nor caused Adu’s death as the two of them merely fought while none of them carried or used any weapon or hard object during the fight,” he had told the court.
