An Akwa Ibom State High Court sitting in the Essien Udim Local Government Area of the state has sentenced a pastor, Uduak Umoren, and his brother, Emmanuel, to death by hanging, for beating one Iboro Joe to death over a piece of land.
The deceased, a 45-year-old farmer and trader who hailed from Ikot Otu was beaten to death when he visited his sister-in-law in Adiasim Ikot Ekon to condole her on her husband’s death.
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 a charm 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, attacking the deceased with a machete and broken bottles.
The deceased was reportedly beaten to a state of coma and dragged to his family compound close to the farm, where he died 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.
“The prosecution team from the state Ministry of Justice had proven its case beyond reasonable doubt. The accused did intentionally kill the deceased,” she ruled.
