Monday Effiong, a 39-year-old man, has been sentenced to life imprisonment for beating his 68-year-old father to death.
Gatekeepers News reports that Justice Bassey Nkanang of a High Court in Akwa Ibom State handed Effiong the sentence to Effiong after he was found guilty on Tuesday.
The convict, an indigene of Mbiakpan Atan in Ibiono Ibom Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State, is said to have beaten his father over the allegation that he was a wizard and was responsible for the inability of his wife to conceive.
The prosecution told the court that the convict, had on 27th May 2017, upon the complaint of his wife against her father-in-law, punched his father with deadly blows and pushed him, to the ground.
According to the prosecution, when a neighbour carried the sexagenarian into his room, the convict still locked up the door to his father’s room and returned the following day, with a patent medicine dealer, only to find the father dead in the room.
Ruling on the matter, Justice Bassey Nkanang held that the invitation of the patent medicine dealer by the convict was an indication that, in spite of the unwarranted and unlawful assault on his father, he had no intention of causing his death, nor did he know that death would be the probable consequence of his action.
“Whereas it was the act of the accused person that resulted in the death of the deceased, the six circumstances provided for in section three-two-three of the Criminal Code, Laws of Akwa Ibom State, which identifies what constitutes murder, appear to be absent in the entire scenario of the case,” the Court held.
Justice Nkanang further held that “the position of the Court, on the extent to which evidence at trial, has established the three ingredients of murder, is that, the deceased is dead and the act of the accused person is responsible for the death, there is insufficient evidence to prove the third mandatory ingredient in a charge of murder.”
“The position of the law is that the particulars of the lesser offence must be capable of being subsumed in the original charge such that it is possible to carve out the lesser offence from the particulars of the original charge, which was murder”.
Justice Nkanang further said, “it is this law that vests the trial court with the power to convict for a lesser offence, where the ingredients of the said the lesser offence is contained in the aggravated charge and are found proved.”
Monday Effiong was convicted for manslaughter and sentenced to life imprisonment.
