A High Court sitting in Bauchi has sentenced a man, Musa Hamza, to death by hanging for killing his friend.
The court, presided over by Justice Faruq Sarki, found the man guilty of killing his teenage friend, slicing his throat and removing his eyes and putting the eyes in a bottle before burying his head and body in different places.
Lawyers from the Bauchi State Ministry of Justice, Mohammed Ibrahim, Salihu Haruna and Ali Yusuf, who filed the case against the convict accused him of murder, pointing out that the punishment was death according to section 221 of the Penal Code.
The prosecutors told the court that the accused, Hamza, who hails from the Alkaleri Local Government Area of Bauchi State, lured his 17-year-old friend, Adamu Ibrahim and hit him with it a stick and removed his head and two eyes, and thereafter buried his head and his body in different places.
The accused, who initially denied the charges levelled against him before the court, later admitted to committing the offence.
The prosecutors, in their bid to prove their case, presented six witnesses, while the defence presented one witness — the accused person.
The witnesses said the deceased’s father brought a complaint that his son did not return home, but he got information that he was seen with the accused after they went out with one other person at night and ate dinner together.
The other person told the court that on that fateful day, he left the accused with the deceased together. But when the accused was asked, he claimed that he also left him.
However, when the Police arrested and searched him, they found the deceased’s phone with the sim card in his (accused’s) possession.
The investigation continued and he later confessed to committing the crime, and explained that he took the deceased to a forest and killed him there; adding that he removed his head and plucked out his eyes.
The accused then took the Police to where the body of the deceased was buried.
When he was asked where the eyes were, he said he left them in his house in a bottle. Police went and recovered the eyes and exhumed the body and took it to the Alkaleri General Hospital where a medical doctor certified him dead.
All efforts made by counsel for the accused, Mahmud Maidoki, to defend the accused were unsuccessful.
The Presiding Judge, Justice Sarki, while delivering his judgement, said that based on the statements of the witnesses and confessional statement of the accused, the court found that he (the accused) committed the crime of murder with intent.
He also refused to agree to his request for leniency sought by the defence counsel and therefore, sentenced the accused to death by hanging based on section 273 and 221 of the Penal code law to serve as a deterrent to others.
