A Magistrate Court, sitting in Chediya, GRA, Zaria, has declared that five persons arraigned before it may get a death sentence or life imprisonment for obstructing the sitting of a mobile court enforcing the COVID-19 movement restriction.
According to the Magistrate, Mustapha Dahiru Isah, his court lacks jurisdiction to hear the case, but the offence was an attempt to commit homicide, which penalty was “life sentence or the death penalty.”
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The court, therefore, ordered the remand of the suspects, Alhaji Bello, Ibrahim Adamu, Sadam A. Mohammed, Basiru Abdullahi and Habibu Bello, in the Nigerian Correctional Service facility pending an advice from the Kaduna State Ministry of Justice on the next line of action and adjourned the matter to September 19, 2020.
Earlier, the prosecutor, Inspector Abdullahi Rilwanu, on behalf of the state commissioner of police, said on 31st of May, 2020, Lamido Abubakar Esq, Magistrate of the mobile court, reported to the Area Command Office of the Nigeria Police in Zaria that the suspects, all of Maraban Gwanda, Sabon Gari, Zaria, had chased him away as the Magistrate of the mobile court stationed in the area.
Inspector Rilwanu also told the court that Magistrate Abubakar told the police that the suspects had attacked him and his auxiliary staff with clubs where he sustained injuries on his finger and leg.
The suspects, according to the prosecutor, also damaged parts of the Hilux bus attached to the court, saying that the acts were a criminal conspiracy, attempt to commit homicide, causing hurt, and obstruction of public servants from performing legitimate duties.
The offenses, according to him, contravened sections 59, 222, 199, 228 and 317 of the penal code of the Kaduna State laws 2017 as amended.
‘Suspects randomly picked’
Some relatives of the suspects, seen at the court premises by our correspondent, however said that their brothers were “randomly picked without any investigation.”
They said, on condition of anonymity, that the fracas happened when hundreds of motorists protested the death of a 70-year-old driver as members of vigilante attached to the court arrested him and attempted to arraign the deceased before the mobile court.
“So, our relatives were just picked because their houses were close to where the mobile court was stationed.
“Actually, those that chased away the Magistrate of the mobile court were motorists plying the Zaria-Kano express road, as their colleague died in the hands of the vigilantes attached to the court.
“They are doing this to us because we are villagers and we have nobody to stand by us.
“Allah is fully around.
“We are appealing to all well-meaning Nigerians to intervene for our relatives to have justice,” one of them said.
