By Oladele Ogunsola

An Ondo State High Court sitting in Akure, the state capital has sentenced a lecturer at the College of Health Technology, Ijero-Ekiti, Ekiti State to death by hanging for armed robbery.

The lecturer, Shittu Isiaka was found guilty on a two-count charge of conspiracy and armed robbery by the presiding judge, Justice O. M. Adejumo, who also discharged and acquitted the accused on the third count of the charge.

The third count of the charge for which Isiaka was set free free was for allegedly endangering the life or health of the victim upon which the judge ruled that the prosecution failed to prove the allegation beyond a reasonable doubt.

Justice Adejumo insisted that the prosecution failed to establish the offence of endangering life as required under Section 135(1) of the Evidence Act.

Isiaka was first arraigned before the court on November 26, 2018 on a three-count charge of conspiracy to commit armed robbery, armed robbery and endangering life.

The prosecution told the court that the defendant and other suspects still at large, in 2017, robbed a commercial driver, Olatunji Olowoyeye of his Nissan Cabstar truck with registration number XJ 214 KTU at gunpoint along Ibuji on the Akure–Ilesha Motorway.

The court was also informed that the victim was brought into Igbara Oke by Highway Patrol officers of the Nigeria Police during which a police witness, Inspector Kehinde Omotosho reported that the victim wrote a statement implicating the defendant.

But, during the trial, the defendant denied all the allegations as he insisted that he had no involvement in the robbery which, however , failed to sway the court in his favour .