Husband killer, Yewande Oyediran, bags seven years for manslaughter

female Lawyer, Yewande Oyediran, who was convicted of killing her husband Lowo, was on Monday sentenced to seven years in prison by Justice Muntar Abimbola of the Oyo State High Court sitting in Ibadan.
Yewande was convicted of manslaughter.
Yewande, a former staff of the Department of Public Prosecution in the Oyo State Ministry of Justice, was accused of killing her husband with a knife after a disagreement on February 2, 2016, at their residence in Akobo area of Ibadan.
She was arrested and arraigned in court but she pleaded not guilty to the murder charge preferred against her.
Accor
The day of judgement was initially slated for November 24, 2017 but the judge moved the day to November 27, 2017 because of other engagements at the Nigerian Judicial Commission.
The court said the convict was charged on a murder count and evidence pointed to Yewande as the killer of her husband; but witnesses presented by the defence counsel failed to establish the intent behind the killing.
The court held that going by the relationship between Yewande and her husband as husband and wife (at the time of the husband’s death), the killing was done without intent.
The couple had no child together.
The judge said that with the evidence before the court, the convict and her late husband had frequently engaged in domestic violence.
He also adjudged the evidence of the couple’s landlord and wife, Mr and Mrs Akinpelu, as credible.

ding to Justice Abimbola, Yewande’s sentence was to start running since the day of her arrest.
The landlord and his wife had told the court that they saw the convict holding a knife, while the deceased was in a pool of blood.
“Having seen the defendant holding a knife and the defendant had earlier confirmed that she had earlier stabbed her husband with a pair of scissors a day before, I hold that it was the defendant that stabbed the deceased,’’ said the judge.
 Abimbola also said that he took into consideration the autopsy report of Prof. Abideen Oluwashola, a consultant from the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan.
“According to the autopsy report, the deceased died as a result of shock from a deep wound caused by a sharp object,’’ Abimbola said.
The court said that the evidence of the convict could not be relied upon, because her statement with the police was different from her statement before the court.
Earlier, Mr Leye Adepoju, the defence counsel, had on the basis that his client was a first time offender, prayed the court to be lenient with the term of the sentence.
He added that imprisonment was not to ruin, but to reform.
“If it is too long, it would ruin the life and as well jeopardise the job of the defendant, being a legal practitioner,” he said.
The prosecution counsel, Mr Sanya Akinyele, however, said he was leaving the issue of the sentencing to the discretion of the court.
NAN reports that Oyediran, a staff of the Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP) in the Oyo State Ministry of Justice, stabbed her husband to death on Feb. 2, 2016, at Akobo area of Ibadan.

The convict stood trial on a lone charge of murder contrary to Section 316 and punishable under Section 319 of the Criminal Code of Oyo State 2,000.
She, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge.