Akwa Ibom State High Court, sitting in Essien Udim Local Government Area, LGA, has sentenced two brothers to death for killing a 45-year-old farmer, Iboro Joe, over a parcel of land. The two are to die by hanging, the court ruled.
The convicts are Uduak Udo Umoren (48), a pastor and motorcyclist, and his 34-year-old brother, Emmanuel Udo Umoren, a farmer and panel beater, who hail from Adiasim Ikot Ekon Village in Essien Udim LGA.
They were condemned to death for the murder of the farmer and a trader from Ikot Otu village in the same Essien Udim LGA, when he went to console his sister in-law in Adiasim Ikot Ekon over the death of her husband.
According to Punch News, the sister in-law had asked the deceased to accompany her to her late husband’s farmland to assess how much she could sell the land for the burial.
It was gathered that, while on the land, the wife of the second convict saw them and called her husband informing him that someone was trying to bury juju on their family land.
On getting to the farmland, the second convict beat the deceased, while his wife also invited her son and her brother in-law who joined and inflicted machete and broken bottles injuries on the deceased.
At the family compound, the two convicts were said to have continued to beat the deceased until the youths of Adiasim Ikot Ekon Village led by the Youth President came to his rescue and rushed him to the General Hospital, Ikot Ekpene, where he was rejected for treatment. It was further gathered that the deceased was taken back to his village, where he died three days later.
Delivering judgment yesterday, the trial judge, Justice Winifred Effiong found the two accused guilty of murder and sentenced them to death by hanging.
She said the prosecution team from the State Ministry of Justice had proven its case beyond reasonable doubt, that the accused did intentionally kill the deceased.