Tuesday, 22 January 2013

Commercial sex worker sent to 6 years imprisonment for killing client




A Lagos High Court in Ikeja on Monday sentenced 27-year-old Nkechi Okafor, a commercial sex worker, to six years imprisonment, for killing a client, Abiodun Sarumi on March 2,2010.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports Justice Lateefat Okunnu sentenced the accused, after finding her guilty of an amended charge of manslaughter.
Delivering judgment, Okunnu said the six years would begin from March 16, 2012 when Okafor was first arraigned and remanded in prison custody for the offence.
"From the evidence before the court, Miss Okafor acted on impulse by stabbing Sarumi, but without the intention to kill", she held.
The judge, however, said that Okafor's defence was not enough to exonerate her of the crime.
The Lagos State Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had charged Okafor to court on a murder charge, but later amended it to manslaughter.
Mrs Olabisi Ogungbesan, Director, Lagos DPP, had told the court that Okafor committed the offence at Nice Time Hotel, Old Ipaja Road, Lagos.
Ogungbesan said Okafor had stabbed the deceased with a bottle on his shoulder, close to the armpit. The prosecutor said that Okafor, in her confessional statement to the Police , admitted that she stabbed Sarumi but without the intention of killing him
According to Ogungbesan, Sarumi had managed to come out of the room soaked in blood and was shouting for help before he finally died.
She said a mob who witnessed the incident had attempted to lynch Okafor before the police rescued and arrested her.
In her testimony before the court, Okafor had claimed that she killed the victim in self-defence.
She said Sarumi came to the hotel on the fateful night to see her friend, Ivie who was not around.
Okafor said the deceased had attempted to forcibly have sex with her and she only stabbed him to prevent him from raping her.

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