Lagos State High Court sitting in Igbosere yesterday sentenced a former Divisional Police Officer (DPO), Mr. Segun Fabunmi, to 10 years in prison for manslaughter.
This followed the fatal shooting of Ademola Ade (or Ademola Aderintola Daramola) in the January 9, 2012, Lagos fuel subsidy protest.
Justice Akinlade also found Fabunmi, a dismissed chief superintendent of police (CSP), guilty of shooting and injuring three others; Alimi Abubakar, Egbujor Samuel and Chizorba Odoh.
She sentenced him to five years on this count, but both sentences are to run concurrently.
Fabunmi, of 12 Oyewole Street, Ogudu, Lagos, who joined the police in 1984, was arraigned on May 5, 2013, by Lagos State on a seven-count of murder, attempted murder and causing grievous bodily harm.
At the time of the incident, the defendant was the DPO of Pen Cinema Police Station, Agege.
He led his men to Yaya-Abatan in Ogba, following reports that there was a disturbance and hoodlums were holding people hostage.
The ex-DPO testified that when he got there, the hoodlums threw bottles, sticks, cutlasses, stones at him and his seven colleagues.
Fabunmi said during the attack by the mob, his rifle, containing 60 bullets, went off.
But he denied shooting the deceased or anyone else.
The court agreed with the defendant that there was a mob but concluded that his testimonies on whether or how an attempt was made to snatch his AK47 and who fired the weapon were conflicting.
The judge rejected defence argument that the shooting was the result of an accident as the defendant struggled with the mob to re-possession his rifle.
Relying on the witnesses’ testimonies and evidence, Justice Akinlade said: “The only conclusion that can be drawn is that the defendant recklessly shot his rifle and in the process the bullet hit the deceased. He definitely knew that shooting an AK47 can cause grievous bodily harm to anyone the bullet hit.
“The fact that he was on a lawful duty did not mean that he should have shot his gun sporadically.”
The judge held that the prosecutors, Lagos Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) Mrs. Idowu Alakija and Assistant Director Mrs. Abiola Adeyinka, proved the offence of murder but that the evidence provided by the defence team, led by George Oguntade (SAN), availed the defendant of the defence of provocation, resulting in the lesser charge of manslaughter.
She said: “The defence of provocation will avail the defendant. It is evident that there was no time for his passion to cool before the gun was fired.”
The deceased, a fashion designer, was shot in the thigh and was rejected at a hospital for want of a police report.
The other three had testified that by the time they were taken to Ikeja General Hospital it was too late.
The deceased bled to death before treatment could begin.
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