Indian hemp dealer sentenced to death for killing policeman

An Anambra State High Court sitting in Otuocha has sentenced one Chukwuebuka Nneji-Olona to death by hanging for the murder of a policeman.

The deceased, Corporal Oluwadaini Temidayo, was killed at Oye-Olisa market, Ogbunike, in Oyi Local Government Area of the state, on May 2, 2014, when the convict, identified as a major Indian hemp dealer at the market, beat him to death with wooden planks and stones.

According to the prosecuting Counsel, Mrs. Stella Ofokansi, the deceased police corporal was a corrupt policeman, working at Nteje Divisional Police Station who used to visit the shops of Indian hemp dealers at OyeOlisa market every month demanding and collecting bribes from the illicit drug dealers in order to keep quiet over their illegal business.

Mrs. Ofokansi said luck ran out of him when he stormed the market in company of other police officers to raid the shops of the illegal Indian hemp sellers, having visited the previous day to collect his usual share.

She said his action brought about so much anger, resistance and resentment from the drug peddlers that they physically assaulted him with stones and woods, leading to his death.

The defendant, feeling guilty that he killed the victim in cold blood and for fear of being caught, ran to the house of a herbalist known as Ajana-Oyibo to seek spiritual protection from the crime he had committed.

The native doctor, however, reported the matter to the local vigilante operatives, who arrested the defendant and handed him over to the Divisional Police Station at Nteje.

The trial judge, Justice Dilibe Amaechina, held the accused liable of unlawfully killing the deceased and found him guilty as charged and sentenced him to death by hanging.