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Justice Bassey Nkanang of an Akwa Ibom State High Court sitting in Uyo has sentenced a 39-year-old man, and a bricklayer, Monday Effiong Philip, to life imprisonment for beating his 68-year-old father, Monday Effiong Akpan, to death.
The prosecution had told the Court that Effiong Philip, a native of Mbiakpan Atan in Ibiono Ibom Local Government Area, attacked his father over allegations that he was a wizard, and responsible for the inability of his wife to conceive. The prosecution said on May,27, 2017, upon the complaint of his wife against her father-in-law, the suspect pounced on his father.
The prosecution also told the Court that even when a neighbor carried Philip’s father into his room, Philip locked the door to his father’s room and returned the following day, with a patent medicine dealer, only to find the father dead.
Delivering judgment in the case, Justice Nkanang held that the invitation of the patent medicine dealer by Philip, 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 323 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 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.
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