Ololade Adeyanju/
A lawyer, Yewande Oyediran, accused of killing her husband, Oyelowo, was today sentenced to seven years in prison for manslaughter.
Yewande was a staff of the Department of Public Prosecution in the Oyo State Ministry of Justice.
Oyelowo was a France-based businessman, who hailed from Gbongan, in Osun State.
The couple had no child.
Yewande stabbed the deceased with a knife on February 2, last year, at their home in Akobo area of Ibadan, Oyo State, in the course of an argument.
She was arrested and charged to court for murder, but she pleaded not guilty to the charge.
Justice Muntar Abimbola of the Oyo State High Court sitting in Ibadan today found her guilty of manslaughter.
The court said the convict was charged on a murder count and evidence pointed to Yewande as the killer of her husband; but witnesses presented by the defence counsel failed to establish the intent behind the killing.
The judge said that with the evidence before the court, the convict and her late husband had frequently engaged in domestic violence.
He also adjudged the evidence of the couple’s landlord and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Akinpelu, as credible.
The landlord and his wife had told the court that they saw the convict holding a knife, while the deceased was in a pool of blood.
“Having seen the defendant holding a knife and the defendant had earlier confirmed that she had earlier stabbed her husband with a pair of scissors a day before, I hold that it was the defendant that stabbed the deceased,’’ said the judge.
Abimbola also said that he took into consideration the autopsy report of Prof. Abideen Oluwashola, a consultant from the University College Hospital, Ibadan, which established the fact that “the deceased died as a result of shock from a deep wound caused by a sharp object”.
Defence counsel, Mr. Leye Adepoju, had, earlier, prayed the court to be lenient with the term of the sentence on the basis that his client was a first time offender.
He also said that imprisonment was not to ruin, but to reform, noting: “If it is too long, it would ruin the life and as well jeopardise the job of the defendant, being a legal practitioner.”
The prosecution counsel, Mr. Sanya Akinyele, however, said he was leaving the issue of the sentencing to the discretion of the court.
Justice Abimbola said her sentence was to start running since the day of her arrest.
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