An Enugu High Court on Thursday discharged and acquitted a student, Victor Isiwu, who had spent four years in prison custody over alleged kidnapping, as the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt.
Isiwu was arrested on September 30, 2012 for driving a gang that kidnapped one Tochukwu Okeke along Enugu/Abakaliki Road and demanded N30 million ransom from the family.
The accused person, who is a student of Gbokoro Polytechnic, Benue, had denied the allegation that he was a member of a kidnap gang that terrorised Enugu metropolis with his cab.
According to him, “I was only a cab driver who conveys people without knowing their identities.
“I am a student and I engaged in cab services to support my education and I carry people without knowing what they are doing,” he told the court.
The prosecutor, Mr C.E. Emejuo, said that the police officer who investigated the matter had testified that the weapons tendered as evidence before the court were not recovered from the accused but from the hoodlums.
He pointed out that the hoodlums who died as a result of gun injuries sustained made a statement confirming that the accused person was a taxi driver whom they hired to drop them.
The presiding judge, Justice Eno Oluedo, said that the prosecution had a burden of proving its case beyond reasonable doubt that the accused person was guilty of the offence.
“The prosecution must abide by the cardinal rule of the confessional statement of the accused, circumstantial evidence by the accused, eye witness account and the collaborative evidence by the witnesses,” she said.
Oluedo said that the prosecution never called the complainant and other witnesses to testify in the matter, to determine if the accused was a member of the kidnapping gang.
“The plaintiff is a vital witness in any criminal matter, the evidence that one hoodlum mentioned ‘my cab guy’ before he died was not enough to rely on.
“A statement made by the accused at the police needed to be examined to see if they are the statement of fact and as well contained a relevant evidence and anything outside it shows that it is not true,” the judge said.
She held that the accused was not the owner of the cab and also not a regular driver of the cab.
“This is confusing as one could not ascertain if the accused was the one that drove the cab the day the plaintiff was kidnapped,” she said.
She, therefore, discharged and acquitted the accused person.
The plaintiff earlier told the court that he was abducted by the gang and released a day after when the family paid a ransom of N600,000.
