Pastor, Farmer  Sentenced to Death for Killing

Okon Bassey in died Uyo

Two brothers have been sentenced to death by an Akwa Ibom State High Court for killing a farmer over a parcel of land.

The court, which sat in Essien Udim LGA of the state, convicted 48 year-old Mr. Uduak Udo Umoren, a pastor and 34 year-old Mr. Emmanuel Udo Umoren, a farmer and panel beater.

Both convicts are indigenes of Adiasim Ikot Ekon Village in Essien Udim Local Government Area.

They were condemned for the murder of one Mr. Iboro Akpan Joe, a 45 year-old farmer and a trader from Ikot Otu also in Essien Udim LGA.

Otu was said to have visited his sister in-law in Adiasim Ikot Ekon to condole her on the death of her husband.

The sister in-law had asked the deceased to accompany her to her late husband’s farmland to assess how much she could sell it for his 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 in beating the deceased with machete and stabbed him with broken bottles.

The plea of the sister in-law and the deceased’s wife, who heard the cry for help and rushed to the scene, fell on deaf ears, as the deceased was beaten to a state of comatose and dragged to his family compound close to the farm.

At the family compound, the two convicts continued to beat the deceased if not for the youths of Adiasim Ikot Ekon Village led by the youth president who came to his rescue and rushed him to the General Hospital, Ikot Ekpene, where he was rejected for treatment.

It was also gathered that the deceased was taken back to his village, where he died three days after the incident.

In her judgment, the presiding judge, Justice Winifred Effiong, found the two accused guilty of murder and sentenced them to death by hanging.

She said that the prosecution team from the State Ministry of Justice had proven its case beyond reasonable doubt that the accused did intentionally kill the deceased.