Justice Mobolanle Okikiolu-Ighile of the Lagos State High Court yesterday sentenced a Togolese cook, Sunday Adefonou Anani, to life imprisonment for the murder of the Chief Executive Officer of Credit Switch Ltd, Ope Badamosi.
Justice Okikiolu-Ighile convicted and jailed the foreigner after he pleaded guilty to a one-count charge of voluntary manslaughter brought against him by the Lagos State government.
Before he was convicted, Anani confessed to the court that he stabbed Chief Bademosi to death in his Ikoyi, Lagos home, while trying to rob him.
The convict also admitted that he was the person caught on Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) fleeing the scene of the crime, after the murder.
Anani was originally arraigned on a two-count charge of murder and armed robbery which could have fetched him a sentence of death by hanging on conviction, but he struck a plea bargain deal with the Lagos State Government soon after the trial commenced.
The agreement, which followed consultation with his counsel, the Director of the Office of the Public Defender (OPD), Mrs Aderenra Adeyemi, allowed him to admit the lesser charge of manslaughter.
Before sentencing Anani, Justice Okikiolu-Ighile asked Mrs Adeyemi if the cook, who spoke only French had an allocutus.
Allocutus is a plea made in criminal trials in order to mitigate the sentence or punishment on a convicted person.
Adeyemi said: “The defendant is a young man and he is remorseful about what he has done. He is a first time offender, there is no evidence that he committed any crime before this. Our humble application is to urge your lordship to grant a sentence of years certain. However, if my lordship is mindful of upholding what we have agreed in the plea bargain, we will accept the sentence therein.”
No comments:
Post a Comment