Monday, 21 January 2013

NIGERIA: Sex Worker Gets Six-Year Jail For Manslaughter



A Nigerian commercial sex worker in the Iyana Ipaja area of Lagos State, Nkechi Okafor has been sentenced to six years imprisonment for allegedly stabbing one of her clients, Abiodun Sarumi to death.

27 year-old Nkechi who is a primary school dropout is a mother of a four-year-old girl and hails from Imo State.

She was found guilty today by Justice Lateefat Okunnu of the Ikeja High court of manslaughter after the charges of murder preferred against her was amended to manslaughter.

Nkechi was arraigned on 16 March 2012, on a one count charge of murder. The charge was later amended to manslaughter.
Justice Okunnu held that from evidence before her, Miss Okafor acted on impulse by stabbing Sarumi, but without the intention to kill.
She noted that her defence for the act was not enough to exornorate her of the crime.

After the judge pronounced the judgment, Nkechi who was crying, pleaded with the court to have mercy on her, saying that she doesn’t have anybody to help her and that she is very sorry for what happened.

Her defence counsel, Mrs A. Onabolu, who also pleaded on her behalf, said the defendant is a young woman in her prime age, a first offender and that she is sorry for what happened.
The prosecuting counsel, Olabisi Ogungbesan, had told the court that the accused on 2 March, 2010, at about 23:30 hours, at Nice Time Hotel, Old Ipaja Road, Lagos, killed her client, one Mr. Abiodun Sarumi, by stabbing him with a bottle on his shoulder, close to the armpit.

Ogungbesan, said that investigation carried out in the matter by Inspector Ada Erondu from state Criminal Investigation Department, Panti, Lagos, confirmed the Nkechi caused the death of Sarumil.
She said that the sex worker admitted that she stabbed Sarumi but that she didn’t know that he was going to die.

No comments:

Post a Comment