By PAMELA EBOH, Awka

An Ogidi High Court sitting in Onitsha, Anambra State has sentenced one Chiugo Ajuluchukwu, an indigene of Umuezrema village, Ojoto, Idemili South Council Area to three years imprisonment after finding him guilty of “assault occasioning harm” on his deceased stepmother, Ifeoma Ajuluchukwu.

The court presided over by Justice Alex Okuma had earlier discharged and acquitted the defendant of the offence of murder, but noted that his action of unlawful removal of the roof of building without prior notice provoked the incident of January 15, 2024, the day he was said to have beaten the deceased, leasing to her hospitalization.

Prior to the Judge reading out the sentencing, Counsel to the Defendant pleaded for leniency on behalf of his client, saying that there is no evidence of his client previously assaulting the deceased or committing such provocative act.

According to him, the defendant has been in custody for a year and 2 months.

Opposing his pleading, Principal Counsel to the State, Amara Muojeke, with the brief of the Anambra State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Professor Sylvia Ifemeje, argued that the offence for which the defendant is standing trial is such that the court does not have the discretion to tamper with the law in respect to sentencing, and prayed that the defendant be sentenced as convicted.

In sentencing the defendant, the court held that even a tenant will justifiably be provoked by what it termed “unwarranted, provocative and unlawful action” of the defendant; not to talk of the deceased he admitted to be his stepmother living in the house of her late husband and also father of the deceased.

The court also held that having triggered the incident and first inflamed the deceased to the extent of her retaliation by destroying the defendants car windscreen, the defendant cannot be allowed to resort to the defense of provocation.