A Chief Judge of the Adamawa State, Hon. Justice Nathan Musa has sentenced dismissed Military Officer, Ali Mohammed Wakil to a five years jail term for killing his girlfriend, Miss Patience Amos.
Ali Mohammed Wakil, was sentenced earlier in the week after he was tried and found guilty of the offense as charged.
Justice Nathan held that the prosecution has proven beyond reasonable doubt the elements of the offense of culpable homicide are not punishable with death contrary to section 193(4) of the penal code law 2018.
He, however, sentenced the convict to 5 years imprisonment without the option of a fine, declaring that the sentence will start running from the 15th of February, 2020, being the first date of the convict’s remand.
He handed down the sentence after considering the plea of allocutus from counsel to the convict, Mohammed Abubakar, an Assistant Chief Legal Officer, Nigeria Legal Aid Council, Adamawa State.
Mohammed pleaded with the court to temper justice with mercy as the convict is a first-time offender and has been remorseful throughout his trial.
He added that the convict has a wife and a child as well as an aged father and mother, saying that aside from the fact that he is a psychiatric patient, he had been dismissed from service.
On his part, counsel to the prosecution, Z. Y. Usman, Senior State Counsel II, stated thus, “I leave it at the discretion of the court”.
Recall that the 33-year-old convict was a military officer with force number 09/NA/63/27034/ attached to Military Reference Yaba, Lagos state before his dismissal.
NigeriaCrime.com gathered that ex-corporal Mohammed murdered the 23 years old Patience Amos, daughter of the Chief Driver of the Adamawa Press Limited, publishers of The Scope Newspaper, Yola, on the 10th January 2020.
The deceased who was newly recruited into the Nigerian Army was killed in a rented apartment at Damilu in Yola North LGA, by the convict believed to be married and blessed with a child.
In his statement to the police, the convict narrated that he visited his girlfriend in their rented apartment on that fateful day and that on his arrival, the deceased started abusing and accusing him of having affair with other ladies.
According to him, the lady slapped and pushed him away, and said he should go back to his harlots and continue having affairs with them.
He said that out of provocation, he forcefully pushed and smashed her head on the wall and went out of the room after smashing her head on the wall.
It further learned that the convict locked her up in the room and walked away and never cared to look back even while she was crying and shouting his nick name “Fabulous” “Fabulous”.
The lady eventually died and spent 3 days in the room after which her dead body was discovered decomposing by her neighbours after they become worried when flies and a terrible odour started emanating from the room.
The neighbours were compelled to forcefully open the window of the room only to discover the body of the girl where they reported the matter to the ward head and to the police who evacuated the corpse.
A few hours later, the convict was spotted near the residence of the father of the deceased at Bachure, in Yola North LGA, strolling and enjoying his normal life with friends; hence his arrest.