Ali Abadallabe Vs Bornu Native Authority (1963)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report

BAIRAMIAN JSC

 The appellant as convicted of culpable homicide punishable with death and sentenced to death by the Shehu of Bomu’s Court on the 4th June, 1962; his appeal to the High Court of the Northern Region was dismissed on the 16th November, 1962; and his further appeal to our Court was dismissed at the hearing at Kaduna on the 6th March, 1963, for reasons which will now be given.

It was about midnight on the 15th to 16th April, 1962, at Ngalori, in the Marte District, that he killed one Jime, a woman, in her house that the appellant admitted but he denied the version given by Zara, the daughter-in-law of the deceased. Zara’s version was that she was woken up by the deceased’s cry for help; she ran out of the room and found them wrestling; her mother-in-law is holding the appellant and she fell down at once; when she, Zara, got hold of him, he stabbed her also, and she fell down, too, and could no longer hold him. Zara survived; Jime died immediately: she had been stabbed on the right side of her chest and on the inside of her right arm in. The appellant asked Zara whether when he entered the room she was asleep or awake; she said she was asleep; he put no more questions.

His version was that as he was leaving the village of the deceased, about midnight, he met Zara’s elder sister, who told him that Zara wanted to see him; so he went and called Zara, who answered; he entered, she asked him to sit on the bed, but he refused; he told her if she had any message, she might let him know; she again asked him to sit on the mat, but he refused and told her that if she had no message to give him, he could go, and then began to go out; he felt a man holding him: it was the deceased Jime; he thinking that they plotted to kill him, tried to free himself by drawing out his knife backwards, and it got at the deceased, who released him, and he ran out; later he was held by another person at a distance, and he again stabbed backwards, but he did not see who it was that he stabbed; and so he got away and fled, but in the afternoon he came back and gave himself up.

He admitted that he knew he was going to Danna’s house, and that Zara was Danna’s wife; that he found the door shut, and that all the people of the house were asleep. His explanation of why he stabbed was that he thought they had made a plot against him.

The elder sister, Anga, gave evidence. She denied telling the appellant to go to Zara, or that Zara had asked her to do so.

The trial Court accepted Zara’s version, and did not believe that her elder sister told the appellant to go to Zara; the court observed that Zara had no idea of his being in the house because she was asleep, and he even stabbed Zara, who tried to catch him after he had stabbed her mother-in-law; and the judgement goes on to say-

“The Court found no evidence that you went to Zara’s house in good faith as you went to her in the midnight and even if you went to commit adultery not for theft you know that Zara is a married woman. You stabbed the deceased when she met you as you felt that they plotted to kill you. How could they plot if you were really asked by Zara to visit her. So the Court has believed that you went to the deceased house intentionally and killed her for no reason.”

“Intentionally-”, in that context, means with intent to commit an offence; but as the trial Court did not believe that Zara had sent a message to the appellant to go to her no question of adultery truly arises.

As already, stated, the High Court dismissed the appeal. The grounds of the further appeal to our Court are –

1. The Court erred in law by holding on the evidence that “the case of Durwan Geer” was directly in point, and that the appellant could not claim the protection of subsection (2) of section 222 and sections 59 and 60 of the Penal Code.

2 That the decision is unreasonable and cannot be supported having regard to the evidence.

The argument in support of the 2nd ground was that Zara should not have been believed; she must be a liar, it was submitted. The trial Court gave reasons for believing her which in our opinion were good, and that ground fails.

The provisions cited in the first ground are-