An Enugu High Court in Enugu State, presided over by Justice Catherine Nwobodo, on Wednesday sentenced three persons, including a woman, to death by hanging for armed robbery.
The court sentenced Samuel Bassey, Nkeiru Nwaigwe and Ifeanyi Igube to death after they were found guilty of committing the offence on November 26, 2008 at the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria Junction at Ngwo, Enugu.
The prosecution counsel, Christopher Onyebueke, in his submission said the account of the incident by the driver, Gabriel Ogbo, and his conductor were not contradictory.
The counsel said they robbed the victims on the fateful day at gun point.
Onyebueke said: “The statement from the victims had no variance and did not contradict itself. Besides, the crime was committed in broad day light and the accused persons were not masked.
“Because they did not wear masks, Ogbo was able to identify the third accused, Igube, three days after because the incident was still fresh in his memory.
“Samuel Bassey and Nwaigwe were arrested on November 26, 2008 while Igube was arrested on Nov. 29, 2013.”
Onyebueke also told the court that the statement of the victims showed that Bassey had a bandage on his leg during the incident, claiming that it was not the police that shot him.
Meanwhile, the defence counsel, Pius Ogwuche, said his clients were not robbers but victims of “a circumstance of cooked up story to nail them down”.
Ogwuche added: “If Bassey was nursing an injury on his leg, how could he have escaped from the scene of the incident?
“There is no statement confirming that the gun and ammunitions tabled before the court were recovered from the third accused, Igube.” Ogwuche said.
The court found the accused persons guilty on the ground that the statements of the victims were not in any way contradictory.
According to the judge, the signature of the accused persons on the statements tabled by the police had no contradiction.
“Besides, there are convincing evidence from the prosecutor’s witness, Okwudili Udeh, a police officer involved with the investigation,” she said.
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