Agboroma Iteraye & Anor. V. The State (1984)

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BELLO, J.S.C.

The appellants were convicted of murder and sentenced to death. The Court of Appeal affirmed the convictions.

The facts found by the trial court show that the deceased in company of one other man were suspected to be thieves and were arrested by a crowd armed with cutlasses; both were led away by the crowd and their beheaded bodies were later discovered.

The 1st appellant was identified by PW4 and PW12 as being one of the members of the crowd that held the deceased and led him away. A matchet stained with human blood was found in the house of the 1st appellant after the incident.

The trial judge treated PW4 as an accomplice but found his evidence was corroborated by PW9 and the blood stained matchet. At the hearing of the appeal before us learned counsel for the appellant has nothing to urge in his favour. I am satisfied the appeal of the 1st appellant has no merit. It is dismissed.

In respect of the 2nd appellant, PW4 and PW7 who the trial judge regarded as accomplices identified the 2nd appellant as being a member of the crowd that led away the deceased. A matchet stained with human blood was found later in the 2nd appellant’s house; in his statement to the police which he retracted at the trial, he admitted having visited the scene where the suspected thieves were arrested at the night in question.

He went with his matchet but said that he did not follow the crowd. He returned to his house. At the trial, he put up a defence of alibi which was destroyed by his own witnesses. The trial judge treated the sum total of the circumstancial evidence against the 2nd appellant as corroborative evidence and convicted the 2nd appellant. The only issue canvassed at the hearing of the appeal before us is that there is no sufficient corroborative evidence to sustain the conviction.

I am satisfied the blood stained matchet, the 2nd appellant’s confession that he was at the scene with his matchet and the total failure of his alibi constitute sufficient corroboration of the evidence of the accomplices to warrant his conviction. His appeal is accordingly dismissed.

Convictions and sentences are affirmed.

ESO, J.S.C.: This is a most unfortunate incident. It depicts barbaric ritual, the like that should never be heard of in this generation. The two appellants were convicted of the murder of Jasper by the High Court at Ughelli, Bendel State and sentenced to death for the murder of Jasper, Jasper’s head was decapitated.

They both appealed to the Court of Appeal which court after hearing arguments dismissed their appeals. Now they have appealed to this court. The learned Senior Advocate representing the appellants has submitted and rightly, in my view, that there is nothing that could be usefully urged in favour of the 1st appellant. The evidence of the 4th and 7th witnesses for the prosecution was evidence from accomplices but then there was the 12th PW.

He cannot be classified as an accomplice. The judge believed his evidence to the effect that he saw the appellant (that is the 1st appellant) as being one of the people who held a “suspected thief” (that was Jasper) thus establishing the presence of the appellant at the scene of the killing. A matchet with human blood stains (exhibit 5) was also found in his house. There was sufficient evidence to convict the 1st appellant and I hold he was rightly convicted.

It was in regard to the 2nd appellant that learned Senior Advocate put up a lusty plea. He contended that the two witnesses P.W.4 and P.w.7 who gave evidence against this appellant were accomplices. This is in fact so. What is necessary here is whether there has been adequate corroboration of the evidence of these accomplices whose evidence was believed by the learned trial judge. There was found in the house of the 2nd appellant, a matchet which is stained with human blood, there was the denial of the appellant that he was in that area with a matchet when in fact, he later admitted he was, there was the alibi of the appellant which he himself destroyed. All these I think afforded adequate corroboration of the evidence of the accomplices p.ws 4th and 7th. In other words, there was circumstantial evidence of his presence, the matchet having human blood stains and his lies that he was not in the vicinity at all in a place where Jasper was killed and his head decapitated.

There is sufficient evidence before the learned trial judge therefore, for coming to his conclusion that the appellant was guilty of the offence of murder of Jasper. The Court of Appeal was right in dismissing the appeal of the appellants.