A Rivers State High Court in Port Harcourt has found and punished five individuals with the death penalty by hanging for the murder of Umezuruike Alex, the leader of a local vigilante group called OSPAC in Omudioga community in the Emohua Local Government Area of the state.
The court ruled that the guilty parties must be hanged or given lethal injection until they are confirmed deceased.
The convicts, Okechukwu Orji from the Atali community in Obio-Akpor; Igwe Promise, Iheanyi Igwe, Morrison Igwe, from Omudioga in Emohua LGA; and Goodness Monday from Akwa Ibom State, were found culpable of 10 charges including conspiracy, cultism, murder, and illegal possession of firearms.
The trial Judge, Justice Sika Aprioku, in his judgment, acquitted the sixth defendant in the case, Alex Deiwe.
Justice Aprioku stated that the prosecution counsel, Essien Edet, substantiated the case against the other five convicts for charges of conspiracy, cultism, illegal possession of firearms, and murder and therefore, convicted and sentenced them to be hanged or given lethal injection until they are confirmed deceased.
The court also found that the convicts not only killed the OSPAC commander of the Omudioga community but were also involved in kidnapping and other criminal activities in parts of the state before their arrest and commencement of prosecution.
According to the prosecution counsel, Essien Edet, who is a legal officer at the Rivers State Police Command, expressed satisfaction over the judgment, describing it as justice well served. Edet further stated it would dissuade others involved in similar crimes.
He said, “I can say that justice has been served. It is a case of the murder of the former OSPAC Commander of the Omudioga community in Emuoha LGA. The case has been on for years. It was a case in which this OSPAC Commander was gruesomely murdered and dismembered by this group of criminals.
“Today, the court has finally given judgment on the matter, and I believe justice has been served. It is a lesson to all those who are going about committing heinous crimes, killing people, taking the lives of human beings as if such are not valuable that justice is also coming after them except they repent.”
PUNCH Metro reported that the former OSPAC commander was killed in 2021, beheaded, and other parts of his body dismembered by the cultists who saw him as a threat to their criminal activities in the area.
