Court jails three suspects for attack on singers

THREE suspects out of the nine that allegedly attacked a group of singers at the Reinsurance building, Bauchi last week have been convicted and sentenced to jail by the Chief Magistrate Court 3 presided over by Chief Magistrate Emmanuel Danjuma just as the other six were released on bail by Chief Magistrate Court 7 presided over by Chief Magistrate Yau Kundak.

Bauchi State Police Command had arrested nine suspects last week after it received a report that hoodlums suspected to be political thugs attacked a group of Bauchi singers injuring five people in the process leading to the prosecution of the suspects in two Chief Magistrate Courts 3 and 7.

The first three suspects who were arraigned before Chief Magistrate Court 3 were Musa Mohammed 23 years, Ashiru Suleiman 25 years and Abubakar Bello charged with the offence of criminal conspiracy and causing grievous hurt contrary to sections 96 and 242 of the Penal Code law.

All the three suspects pleaded guilty to the offence and begged the court for leniency being first offenders.

In his judgement, the presiding Chief Magistrate, Emmanuel Danjuma convicted them on first offence to spend 10 months in prison or to pay a fine of N8,100 as stipulated in section 97 of the Penal code while on the second offence he sentenced them to 12 months in prison or to pay a fine of N9100 as contained in section 253 (1) of the Penal code.

At Chief Magistrate Court 7, Six of the suspects were arraigned before Chief Magistrate Yau Kundak where their Counsel, Barrister Mathias Tsuwa sought for their bail and the prosecution did not object the request.

The presiding Chief Magistrate, Yau Kundak granted them bail at the sum of N80,000 each with sureties in like sum while each surety must swear an affidavit and deposit his passport photographs with the court.

A group of lawyers from Watchdog Society, however, applied to the Court that they should be joined in the prosecution of the suspects and asked the court to allow the Police to give them the case diary of the offences.

Counsel to the accused persons, Mathias Tsuwa said he has no objection to the application and the presiding Chief Magistrate Yau Kundak granted the application and adjourned the case to 4th June for further mention.