Sodienye Mbadumukeke, the man sentenced to death on Monday for the murder of a Jumia deliveryman in Port Harcourt has said he would appeal the judgment.
His lawyer, Bonaventure Ogu, said he had received oral instructions from the convict to appeal. He said the court erred when it admitted in evidence a confessional statement extracted from the convict by extrajudicial means.
“The criminal justice law of Rivers State renders those confessional statements inadmissible in evidence. And we canvassed that point and cited authorities of the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal decisions to buttress that point. But my Lord held that those authorities were not applicable,” Ogu said.
The Director of Public Prosecutions, Ibiene Mbano, welcomed the judgment, saying it would be a deterrent to “youngsters who think they can grab whatever they want by maiming people.”
The wife to the deceased Jumia deliveryman, Blessing Eleji, said, she had had to keep answering questions from her children about the whereabouts of their late father. “I give glory to Almighty God who has done this for me. It has not been easy for us without him in the family. I have been the one answering a lot of questions. His daughter thought that her father went for outside work and at last he would come back,” she said.
A high court in Port Harcourt had sentenced to death Sodienye Mbadumukeke for killing a Jumia the Jumia deliveryman, Eljei in March 2017after the deliveryman delivered some items to him. The Judge, Chigozie Igwe, said the prosecution was able to prove its case against the convict.
He said even though the convict rejected the extra-judicial confessional statements he made, the evidence was weighty enough to believe that he killed the Jumia delivery agent.
The judge also found Mbadumukeke guilty of the second charge of armed robbery. He discharged the second accused person, Divine Naabee because there were doubts provided by the prosecution to find him guilty of committing the crime.
The murder trial started three years ago when the body of the deceased was found in a septic tank.
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