Ibrahim Mohammed a ritualist, has been sentenced to death by hanging by a Kogi state High court sitting in Koto- Karfe. Mohammed was convicted for the death of two brothers, Mohammed Abubakar and Umar Tanko.

Mohammed was believed to have killed the brothers; by first administering poison to weaken them before hitting them on the head with pestle. Thereafter, he was said to have proceeded to bury them in a shallow grave in his compound.

Delivering judgement, Justice Alaba Omoleye-Ajileye of the High court Koton- Karfe said, “Sometimes ago, two brothers of the same father, Mohammed. Kudu Abubakar and Tanko Umar Abubakar set out on a journey with the hope of returning home and indeed gave a word to their family members to return on a particular day, but the journey turned tragic and bizarre. It became a journey of no return.

“The outcome of the journey was the exhumation of their bodies on the compound of the accused.”

The prosecutor has during trial charged the accused with two grounds of first robbing TankoAbubakar of his Toyota Carina E Wagon with registration number BDA 902AA on January 10, 2016 thereby committing an offence punishable under section 298(a) of the penal code.

The prosecutor also said on the same day, he, (Muhammed) did commit culpable homicide punishable with death killing Tanko Abubakar, hitting him on the head with a pestle with the intention of killing him thereby committing an offence punishable under section 221(a) of the penal code.

According to Ajileye, “With all the pieces of evidence presented by the prosecution: the exhumation of the bodies of Tanko and Mohammed from the compound of the accused, I hold that after poisoning the two brothers as the accused confessed, in his downright criminality, he hit their heads with pestle to hasten their annihilation. And in order to avoid any trace of his brutal and inhuman act, the accused buried the dead bodies of Tanko and Mohammed in his compound. Unfortunately since nothing is hidden under the sky, nemesis caught up with him”. the judge said.

“By your own word, after poisoning both Tanko and Mohammed and refused to die, you used a pestle to hit them in their heads.That was a brutal homicide committed with determination and ruthlessness. The manner you committed it, by your own description, makes it a high level of exceptional wickedness that it can only be properly marked by death sentence, which the only sentence I can pass on you”

End.