NIGERIA: COURT SENTENCES BENINOISE HOUSEKEEPER TO DEATH BY HANGING FOR MURDER

A Lagos High Court, sitting in Igbosere on 27 May 2019, sentenced a Béninoise house help, Christian Hounvenon Yavine, to death by hanging for murdering a 78-year-old woman, Mariam Atinuke Abiola.
Yavine was accused of killing his employer’s 78-year-old mother on July 1, 2014, at the daughter’s house.
Justice Oluwatoyin Ipaye found Yavine, 23, guilty of the offence of murder and sentenced him to death by hanging.
The convict allegedly severed Abiola’s neck with a knife while she was asleep in her daughter’s Ipaja, Lagos home.
Abiola was the mother of Ajoke Ashiwonyi Abiola, Yavine’s employer, who was away to a church vigil when the incident occurred. After a trial that lasted for over three years, Justice Ipaye dismissed Yavine’s defences, including a claim that he was 14 years old at the time of the offence, having been born in the year 2000.