26-year-old Man Sentenced To Death By Hanging For R*pe, Robbery

A Delta High Court sitting in Warri, yesterday, sentenced a 26-year-old furniture maker, Chijioke Ede, to death by hanging. The convict had been arrested after robbing a couple and defiling their daughter. The condemned armed robber and defiler was arraigned on a three-count charge of conspiracy to commit armed robbery, armed robbery and r*pe before the court presided over by Justice Marshall Mukoro.

He was found guilty on all the charges and sentenced to death on count one and two, while he got life imprisonment on the charge of r*pe.

Prosecution from Delta State Ministry of Justice had told the court that Chijioke, from Enugu State, with another person still at large, on or about October 12, 2009, at Okoro Street, Warri, off Marine Gate, within the Warri Judicial Division, robbed his victims of a DVD player, a laptop computer, cash, jewelries and other valuables at gunpoint and also defiled their teenage daughter.

The convict was arrested by the vigilante group in the area as his gang made to escape with their loot.

Justice Mukoro held: “With the avalanche of facts and evidences before this court, for the accused to say he was not involved in the crime is laughable and an afterthought.

“For the court to hold the evidence of the accused will amount to denial of justice, thereby bringing the bar and the bench to disrepute.

“I hereby uphold the evidence of prosecution as all the ingredients of the offence have been proved beyond reasonable doubt and sentence the accused to death by hanging on count one and two.”