NIGERIA: MAN SENTENCED TO DEATH BY HANGING FOR PHONE THEFT IN EKITI

A high court in Ado Ekiti on 28 February 2020 sentenced a middle-aged man named Isa Abdulkareem, to death by hanging for armed robbery.
While delivering the judgment, Justice Mosunmola Abodunde concluded that the prosecution proved its case beyond all reasonable doubts and consequently found the defendant guilty as charged by the prosecution.
During the trial, the Ekiti State Ministry of Justice’s prosecutor, Mr Gbemiga Adaramola, told the court that Abdulkareem, armed with a cutlass and gun, robbed one Taiwo Olomola the sum of one hundred and ten thousand Naira (N110,000.00) and Techno smartphones.
The prosecutor said the accused man carried out the robbery on 19 December 2016, at Ureje axis in Ado Ekiti, the state capital.
He said, Abdulkareem had pleaded not guilty to all the charges levelled against him.
The prosecutor told the court that the convict was promptly apprehended at the point of the crime with the weapons and other exhibits, which made it easy for the prosecutor and police to bring witnesses forward to testify against him.
The prosecutor brought four (4) witnesses to prove his case and tendered exhibits, which included two (2) guns, five (5) live cartridges, phones, as well as the convict’s confessional statement.
The convict’s legal counsel was Mr. Adeyinka Opaleke, who called only the convict as his sole witness during the trial.