[ad_1]
Justice Ukpa Ebitam of Cross River State High Court has fixed March 31 for judgment over murder case involving former staff of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mr. Godwin Elewana.
He is being held over the alleged murder of a 22-year-old student, Douglas Ojugbo, on March 10, 2015.
Ojugbo was allegedly murdered over suspicion that he was having an affair with the daughter of the accused, Mercy.
The accused, who had been in prison custody for over one year, was said to have shot Douglas in the arm and leg and allowed him to bleed to death.
The Police said afterwards, he bundled the victim into his car and took the corpse to the Federal Housing Police Station in Calabar.
The corpse was hurriedly buried by operatives attached to the Federal Housing Police Station, but was later exhumed and investigated after the family petitioned authorities of the Zone Six Police Command.
A pump action gun had earlier been tendered as exhibit in the case No HC/9C/2015. The gun was alleged to have been used in shooting the deceased. In the course of trial, the court had sometime in November 2017, rejected the case of no-submission pleaded by the defence counsel, Mr. Clement Ukaegbu.
However, in his address to the court on Tuesday, Defence Counsel, Mr. Clement Ukaegbu, maintained that the confessional statement made by his client (Elewana) was inadmissible in court.
“This case should be discountenanced because it was not made with video evidence,” he told the court.
Ukaegbu contended that the statement having not been made with video coverage should not be relied upon by the court to convict his client as this was in line with Section 7 (2) of the Cross River State Criminal Procedures Law.
He, therefore, asked the court to discharge and acquit the accused.
But the prosecution team, led by Mr. Eneji Amajama, of the Department of Public Prosecutions, state Ministry of Justice, argued in his address that the murder was premeditated, vindictive and carried out in cold blood.
Amajama said, “The Evidence Law of Cross River State is derived from the Evidence Act of the federation and any state law which conflicts with that of the federation is null and void. The evidence is in the exclusive list and not on the concurrent list in the 1999 constitution.”
He added that the cold blooded murder of a 22-year-old boy does not need video evidence.
[ad_2]
Source link
