Al-Mustapha, Sofolahan appeal death sentence, as Sultan, Northern leaders meet over Mustapha (Why didn’t they meet over Christians being killed by Boko Haram?)

Posted by admin Headlines, Sultan of Sokoto Wednesday, February 1st, 2012

Former Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the late Head of State, General
Sani Abacha, Major Hamza al-Mustapha and aide to the late Alhaja
Kudirat Abiola, Lateef Sofolahan have appealed Monday’s judgment of a
Lagos High Court which sentenced them to death by hanging.

This is even as prominent northern traditional rulers led by the Sultan of
Sokoto, Alhaji Sa ad Abubakar held an emergency meeting on Tuesday
in Kaduna over the plight of Al-Mustapha and the precarious security
situation in Nigeria.

The meeting, which took place at the Lugard Hall of the Government
House for about three hours, however ended without a communiqué.

Justice Mojisola Dada had on Monday sentenced both Al-Mustapha and
Sofolahan to death by hanging for their involvement in the murder of
Kudirat, wife of the presumed winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential
election, Chief M.K.O Abiola.

The duo in their notices of appeal filed on Tuesday before the Court of
Appeal, sitting in Lagos, described the judgment as “unreasonable,
unwarranted and cannot be supported for having disregard to the totality
of evidence before the trial court.”

Raising five grounds on which they want to predicate their appeal, they
urged the appellate court to set aside the lower court’s decision and
quash the sentence against them.

According to them, the trial judge erred in law by holding that the
contradictions in the evidence by Barnabas Jabila Mshelia (Rogers) – the
second prosecution witness (PW2) and Mohammed Abdul (Katako) – the
third prosecution witness (PW3) were immaterial.
Bothe convicts stated that the said contradiction in both witnesses’
evidence, were actually relevant to their case and ought to have been
admitted in evidence.

Their second ground of appeal was that the trial judge erred when she
relied on the evidence of the first prosecution witness, Ore Falomo, a
medical doctor, to the effect that the bullet extracted from the late Kudirat
was a special one, not commonly seen.
They queried the trial judge’s decision to rely on the information by
Falomo, knowing that he (Falomo) is neither a Ballistician nor an expert
in that field of science.

In ground three, the appellants accused the trial judge of exhibiting bias
against them by allegedly rejecting portions of Rogers’ and Katako’s
evidences that favoured them, but accepted and relied on the portions
that were unfavourable to them.

No date has been fixed for hearing of the appeal.

-Africanexaminerwp_posts