A Kogi state high court sitting in Lokoja, on Thursday sentenced two people, Lucky Jonathan and Daniel Friday, accused of rape to 12 years imprisonment
The presiding judge, Justice Nasir Ajana, who is also the chief judge of the state, found the accused guilty of causing bodily harm and raping their victim.
The accused were charged with conspiracy, rape, voluntarily causing hurt and abetment of the offence of rape in contravention of the Penal Code.
The offences were allegedly committed on 11th September, 2015 at Otokiti village in Lokoja the Kogi state capital.
Delivering his judgment in the suit with case number HCL/48C/2016, Ajanah established that Jonathan, was involved only in the commission of the offence of conspiracy and voluntarily causing hurt to the victim, while Friday conspired with his co-convict and raped their victim with others who were said to be at large.
Although they both pleaded not guilty during the trial, the court was however convinced by the evidence presented by the prosecution, as a proof of the commission of the offences by the convicts.
The four exhibits tendered included the confessional statements of the convicts which the court admitted in arriving at its verdict.
Ajanah, while sentencing the accused persons said “Prosecutrix (the victim) alleged that the second accused (Daniel Friday) had sex with her without her consent or knowledge.”
“The second accused had corroborated the evidence of the prosecutrix when he stated in exhibit 2 that he had sex with the prosecutrix and that he was in fact the fourth to have sex with her forcibly.”
“The torn clothes of the prosecutrix recovered at the scene of crime and the bruises observed on the body of prosecutrix also bears testimony to the fact that the act of the second accused was done without the consent of the prosecutrix.”
“I am therefore convinced that the prosecution in this case has proved the offence of rape under Section 283 against the second accused beyond reasonable doubt. It has been held severally that an accused can be convicted on his confessional statement alone, but in this case other corroborative evidences have added credence to the confession of the said accused.
“I therefore hereby convict the second accused of the offence of rape contrary to Section 283 of the Penal Code.”
On the first accused person, Ajana said he was “convinced from the plethora of evidence that the first accused took part in encouraging and instigating the commission of the offence of rape by the second accused and others at large.”
and then