KUNLE OLUTAYO
LAGOS, Nigeria – For killing a Lagos based lawyer, Bolanle Raheem, a Lagos State High Court, Tafawa Balewa Square, on Monday convicted and sentenced the suspended Assistant Superintendent of Police, ASP Drambi Vandi, to death by hanging.
The court sentenced him after finding him guilty of murder of the pregnant lawyer.
Justice Ibironke Harrison held that the convict should be hanged by the neck until he breathes his last.
Vandi, attached to the Ajiwe Police Station in Ajah, Lagos State, shot Raheem while she was returning from an outing with her family members on Christmas Day.
While delivering the judgment, justice Harrison, analysed the evidence of all the eyewitnesses.
She held that non of the eyewitness actually saw the defendant pull the trigger but the circumstantial evidence was overwhelming.
The judge said that a defendant could be convicted when the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming.
Her words: “The question in the mind of the court is did the prosecution proffer any additional evidence?
“The court finds that the ammunition of the other officers who were on patrol with the defendant remained intact but two of the defendant’s ammunition were missing.”
Harrison said that the defendant had alleged that the shortfall in his ammunition was because it was counted in his absence.
The judge also said that the defence of the defendant that the bullet tendered in court was not his own.
The court, however, held that the defendant constituted itself as a ballistician pathologist without tendering a certificate to that effect.
She, therefore, dismissed the evidence of the defendant as to the bullet used.
“The court finds that the forensic expert and the medical doctor’s evidence confirms the circumstantial evidence that the defendant had the opportunity to shoot the victim and that the victim was shot and died from the gunshot.
“Every eyewitness heard the loud noise and the passers-by shouted in Yoruba language (oti pa eyan) meaning you have killed someone.
Justice Harrison held that the prosecution proved its case beyond every reasonable doubt that there was an overwhelming circumstantial evidence that it was the convict who shot the gun that killed the deceased.
“The death of the deceased was instantaneous. There is no other explanation, it was the gunshot that shattered the side glass and pierced the victim’s chest.
“It was the defendant who had an Ak-47 riffle whose ammunition was missing after the armourer counted it,” she held.
The judge further held that the defendant did not say that he pointed the gun to force or scare the people in the vehicle to obey order and park the vehicle.
She said that the defendant did not also say that the shooting was an accidental discharge which would have earned him a smaller sentence of manslaughter.
“Therefore, the defendant is found guilty of the one count charge and sentenced to death by hanging he should be hung until he dies,” she held.
The prosecution had called 11 witnesses.
Vandi, during his defence, told the court that he had never come across the bullet that was shown in court as the alleged murder weapon.
He said that the bullet was not the same ammunition in his rifle on the day of the incident
The State government in a charge, dated December 28, 2022, and marked LD/20598c/22, alleged that Vandi killed Raheem contrary to Section 223 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.
He was arraigned before the court on January 16, 2023 for allegedly shooting to death the 41-year-old pregnant lawyer at the Ajah underbridge Roundabout, on Lekki- Expressway, checkpoint on December 25, 2022.
Vandi pleaded not guilty to the one-count charge of murder and the court then granted accelerated hearing on the case.
During trial one of the convict’s colleague
Inspector of Police Matthew Ameh had told the court that they were conducting stop and search when the incident happened
He stated that his colleague Inspector Fiyegha Ebimine was in front while he was at the middle and Vandi who was the leader of the team was at the back.
Ameh who was the first prosecution witness said that when Ebimine saw a car coming and he flagged it down but the car didn’t stop and when the car got to where he was standing , he also flagged the car down but the car didn’t stop as well.
He said, ” The next thing I heard was a gun shot and I looked back to see what was happening and I saw that a windscreen was falling down.
” The next thing I saw again was a dark woman who jumped down from the vehicle and I heard her saying that oga you have killed my sister, the woman held him and before I and Ebimine could get to them, they had entered the car locked it and left.”
Ahmen who was led in evidence in chief by the former Attorney General and Commission of Justice, Moyosore Onigbajo SAN, who led the prosecution team alongside the Director of public Prosecution Dr Babajide Martins, told Justice Harrisson on December 25, 2022, he and his other colleagues resumed duty at 6am, in their office at Ajah.
When asked the time the incident happened, he said that it was around 1pm, and that the car the deceased was killed in was a Toyota car that had no plate number.
Ebimine in his testimony also confirmed the evidence of Ameh.
He said,”One woman was in the passenger seat, a man was driving. I flagged the vehicle down. It didn’t stop. They passed me. I wondered why. He was not speeding. Ameh also flagged him down but he didn’t stop”.
The witness said “Shortly after, I heard a gunshot from the back. I asked Ameh, ‘What is going on?”
Ebimine told the court that afterwards a crowd gathered and swooped on Vandi, brought him out of a Korope (commercial minibus) where he hid, and put him in the deceased’s car.
On January 25, the deceased’s husband
Gbenga Raheem, told the court that the car where the deceased was allegedly killed by Assistant Vandi, was gifted to her.
He said she received the car on Friday December 23, 2022, from a property developer where she worked two days before she was shot dead.
Gbenga a property developer stated that the car was a Toyta Venza which was gifted to her because she met her target as she was a very hard working woman.
He said they normally go to Redeemed Christian Church of God at Ikoyi. But on that particular Sunday their church was having a program at Surulere.
” So we decided to go to The World Assembly Church where we got married 10 years ago, because my wife was very close to the founder of the Church and they brought her up spiritually when she was growing up.
