Proceedings were stalled on Tuesday in the trial of an undergraduate, Chidinma Ojukwu, charged with the murder of Super TV Chief Executive Officer, Michael Usifo Ataga.
Ojukwu, a 300-level Mass Communication student of the University of Lagos, is standing trial before the Lagos State High Court sitting at the Tafawa Balewa Square.
She is being prosecuted alongside her sister, Chioma Egbuchu, and one Adedapo Quadri for the murder of Ataga on June 15, 2021.
The court had fixed Tuesday to hear a no-case submission filed by Quadri and Egbuchu but the absence of Egbuchu’s lawyer stalled the hearing.
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The counsel, CJ Jiakpona had sent in a letter to the court asking for an adjournment. He said he went for another matter at the Federal High Court.
Quadri’s counsel, Babatunde Busari, in his response to the letter, told the court that his client’s no-case submission application was ready, and it didn’t concern the third defendant.
He told the court that he wished to adopt it.
However, the judge, Justice Yetunde Adesanya, said she could not hear the case since the third defendant’s lawyer was not in court.
Justice Adesanya then adjourned the case till December 5, 2024, for the hearing of the no-case submission.
The defendants were arraigned before the court on October 12, 2021, by the Lagos State Government.
Ojukwu and Quadri are facing the first to eight counts bordering on conspiracy, murder, and stabbing while her sister, Egbuchu, is facing the ninth count of stealing an iPhone 7 belonging to the late Ataga.
Ojukwu and Quadri were alleged to have conspired and murdered Ataga on June 15, 2021, by stabbing him several times with a knife in the neck and chest.
The incident occurred at No. 19, Adewale Oshin Street, Lekki Phase 1, Lagos.
During the trial, the prosecution called 11 witnesses in proof of its case against them after which it closed its case, to enable the defendants put in their defence.
But instead of the defendants calling witnesses in its defence, the second and third defendants, Quadri and Egbuchu, chose to file a no-case submission, maintaining that no case had been made against them to warrant putting in a defence.
During the prosecution’s case, Ojukwu had testified in a trial-within-trial that she was slapped and forced to sign statements written by policemen in the state.
She told Justice Yetunde Adesanya that policemen including Assistant Superintendent of Police, Olusegun Bamidele, and Olufunke Madeyinlo, told her to sign statements against her will.
Ojukwu said Bamidele told her to narrate the statement he wrote to the state Commissioner of Police after tearing the statement she wrote.
But on May 4, 2023, Justice Adesanya, ruled that the prosecution proved beyond reasonable doubt that Ojukwu made the statements voluntarily and not under duress.
The judge held that “the videos tendered in court did not display any intimidation towards the defendant while she was writing her statements.
“The voice of the Investigating Police Officer was clear and audible. It did not show any form of intimidation.”
