Lagos Appeal Court frees 3 death roll inmates

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(Nigeria) Three death roll inmates, Kingsley Akhabue, Ismail Fatoki and Fabian Mathew, convicted and sentenced to death on March 29, 2011 by the Lagos High Court, have regained their freedom, after being discharged and acquitted by the Court of Appeal sitting in Lagos.
The case for which they were convicted and sentenced to death was that they conspired to rob, and did rob the complainant on  March 22, 2008 while armed with offensive weapons.
It was alleged that the said robbery took place at the Egan area of Lagos. At the end of the trial in 2011, the trial court found them guilty and sentenced them to death.
Following the appeal against their conviction and sentence, filed by Legal Defence and Assistance Project, LEDAP, a panel of Justices presided by  Justice Joseph Ikyegh of the Court of Appeal, Lagos, unanimously allowed the appeal of the three appellants and set aside their conviction and sentence to death in a landmark judgment.
In the judgment, the appellate  court resolved all the issues raised at the appeal in favour of Kingsley Akhabue, Ismaila Fatoki and Fabian Mathew, the appellants in the appeal.
In the end, the court particularly found that “The evidence of the respondent at the court below did not link the appellant with the commission of the offences charged.”
According to their lawyer, Chino Obiagwu; “This is another opportunity to re-iterate our calls for an in-depth re-evaluation and urgent overhauling of our Criminal Justice System, especially as it relates to the use of capital punishment. We cannot continue to be sentencing innocent persons to death, only for the Appeal Court to upturn the judgment after a decade or more when the appellant must have served unlawful sentence and deprivation of his personal liberty in the prison.”
He called on the Nigeria government to reconsider its stand on the use of capital punishment by abolishing the use of death penalty and replacing same with life imprisonment.

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