A Bauchi State High Court number 10 presided over by Justice Faruq Umar Sarki has sentenced a man named Musa Hamza to death by hanging for killing his friend.
Justice Faruq gave the ruling after Hamza was found guilty of killing a young man by cutting his neck, plucking out his eyes, putting the eyeballs in a bottle, and burying the head and the body in different places.
Lawyers of the Bauchi State Ministry of Justice, Mohammed Y Ibrahim, Salihu A Haruna and Ali S Yusuf had filed a case against Hamza where they accused him of murder, the punishment of which is also death as per the law 221 of the Penal code.
The prosecutors told the court that Musa Hamza, from Alkaleri Local Government Area of Bauchi State, called a 17-year-old boy named Adamu Ibrahim, hit him with a stick, cut his head, removed his eyes and buried his head and his body in different places.
The suspect denied the accusation against him in the beginning, but later he admitted committing crime.
The prosecution presented six witnesses while the defense presented one witness and that is the accused.
The witnesses said that the boy’s father brought a complaint that his son did not return home, but he heard information that they were seen with the accused, they went out three of them at night, they ate dinner together, .They didn’t fight, and did not insult each other. Later one of them left the accused and the deceased together. but when the suspect was asked, he said that he took left him, after he was arrested, Police searched and found him with the phone and the line of the deceased, when the phone was found with the suspect, the investigation continued and he confessed to the crime against him, he said that he took the deceased to the forest and killed him and cut his head flucked his eyes and he took the police where the body of the deceased was buried. When asked where the eye was, he said he left it at home because, he put the eye in a bottle. Police went and took the eyes, they took the deceased body to Alkaleri General Hospital where medical Doctor certified him death.
All the efforts made by counsel to the accused Mahmud Maidoki to defend the accused was unsuccessful
While sentencing him, the Presiding Judge, Justice Umar Faruq Sarki said based on the statements of the witnesses and confessional statement of the accused the court found that the accused committed this crime of murder and the court understood that he committed murder with intent.
Justice Faruq also refused to agree to his request for leniency and sentenced the accused to death by hanging as per section 273 and 221 of the Penal code laws to serve as a deterrent to those who want to commit such a crime.
