Ondo State High Court sitting in Akure, the state capital on Thursday sentenced one James Ofem, an armed robbery culprit, to death by hanging.
Ofem was part of the notorious robbery gang terrorizing residents and mostly motorists on the Ondo/ Ore road and had been the security watch list for a long time.
Presiding Judge, Justice Williams Olamide, who delivered the judgement said that Ofem, the convict, was guilty of the two count charge of conspiracy and armed robbery made against him.
He said that the witnesses brought to court to testify on the case made allusion to use of arms in the armed robbery attacks executed by Ofem.
According to Justice Olamide, the prosecution had proven the robbery case beyond reasonable doubt with lot evidences that the accused was indeed guilty of the crime.
Wale Bamisile, the Prosecutor from Department of Public Prosecution, (DPP) in the Ondo State Ministry of Justice had recalled how Ofem with his gang on July 12, 2017 conspired to robbed Adamu Mustapha off his CoolPad phone, Infinix and Nokia handsets.
Another witness, Sergeant Franklin Alabi of Enuowa Police Station who tendered the exhibit recovered from the suspect before the court noted that investigation into the case all revealed that the culprit was found culpable in the robbery case.
He narrated how the police received a distress call about the robbery attack which took place on the Ore road which prompted the anti-robbery squad to swing into action.
Adamu Mustapha, who was also in the court and served as witness to corroborate the prosecutor account, explained that he and a motor-boy were waylaid by Ofem’s robbery gang around the liyetu village on the Ondo/Ore road.
Mustapha added that the gang laid barricade on the road and their bus rammed into it while the hoodlums emerged from the bush, beat them mercilessly and robbed two of them of their personal belongings.
According to him, “I and my motorboy ran into a barricade on the Ondo/Ore road and suddenly from no where the armed robbers emerged, they beat us mercilessly and in the process robbed us of our clothes, phones and a sum of N52, 710.
“We reported the case to the Police Station at Enuowa Division in Ondo town and few days later they called us that they have recovered stolen items and also arrested the culprits”
