The deceased, a 45-year-old farmer and trader who hailed from Ikot Otu in Essien Udim LGA, was beaten to death when he visited his sister-in-law in Adiasim Ikot Ekon, also in Essien Udim LGA to condole with her on the death of her husband.
The sister-in-law had told the court that she asked the deceased to accompany her to her late husband’s farmland to assess how much she could sell it for his burial when the wife of the second convict saw them and alerted her husband that someone was trying to bury juju on their family land.
She told the court that arriving on the farmland, the second convict started beating the deceased, while his wife also invited her son and her brother-in-law who joined in the fray, cutting the deceased with a machete and broken bottles.
The deceased was beaten to a state of coma and dragged to his family compound close to the farm, where he gave up to the ghost after three days.
Delivering judgment on the matter on Wednesday, the presiding judge, Justice Winifred Effiong, found the two accused guilty of murder and sentenced them to death by hanging accordingly.
She said the “prosecution team from the State Ministry of Justice had proven its case beyond reasonable doubt, adding that the accused did intentionally kill the deceased.”
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