The Ondo State High Court in Akure, the state capital, has sentenced a man identified as Abayomi Joseph to death for the murder of his neighbor.
According to Igberetv, Joseph was convicted of cutting one Thomas Oluwole, a neighbor, to death with a machete in 2021 in the Ijoka area of Akure.
According to the report, during a heated argument, Joseph attacked the 63-year-old bricklayer with a machete, cutting his neck and other parts of his body with the machete, causing his death. He was subsequently arrested by police and charged to court.
He was also summoned to court on one count of murder, according to information filed in court by Assistant Attorney General Omotola Ologun of the Ondo State Ministry of Justice.
During the proceedings, the defendant claimed that he was insane during the crime. After a series of arguments by both prosecution and defense attorneys, the court found Joseph guilty.
While handing down the sentence, Judge O.S. Kutay said that since the defendant intentionally attacked the deceased by hitting him on the head with a tree and cutting his head with a box cutter knife, he was not excused from causing the death of the deceased by his actions.
Judge Kutei sentenced him to death by hanging, even though the prosecution had proved beyond a reasonable doubt the murder case against the defendant.
His feeble attempts to bring up insanity and insanity are nothing but a ploy to cover the face of the court from the truth of the murder of the deceased on that fateful morning of March 17, 2021.
Defendant’s evidence that he ran to the top of the mountain, met with a pastor, and was advised by that pastor to report his fears to the street president, is a failed ploy to rely on insanity delusion,” the court found
