<\/p>\n
by Lucy Osuizigbo-Okechukwu<\/p>\n
A High Court in Awka on Monday sentenced a man, Silas Uwa, to life imprisonment for killing his uncle, Mr Nweke Eziokwu, over a land dispute.<\/p>\n
Delivering judgment, Justice Okechukwu Nwabunike, held that murder could be established through direct eyewitness evidence, a confessional statement or circumstantial evidence.<\/p>\n
The trial judge held that although there was no direct eyewitness account, the prosecution had established through credible circumstantial evidence that the Uwa killed the deceased.<\/p>\n
The judge also rejected the plea of self-defence.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Mr Ifeanyi Oguejiofor, Chief State Counsel told the court that Uwa and the deceased had an altercation over ownership of a parcel of land in Ebenebe, Awka North Local Government Area of Anambra.<\/p>\n
The prosecution said that Eziokwu\u2019s kinsmen agreed that the land belonged to him, a decision which Uwa and his siblings rejected.<\/p>\n
The prosecution said rather than seek legal redress, Uwa attacked his uncle and hacked him to death.<\/p>\n
The prosecution called four witnesses, including the Investigating Police Officer, to establish its case.<\/p>\n
The defence raised the plea of self-defence and argued that the prosecution failed to prove murder beyond reasonable doubt, citing the absence of an eyewitness account.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A High Court in Awka on Monday sentenced a man, Silas Uwa, to life imprisonment for killing his uncle, Mr Nweke Eziokwu, over a land dispute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[72],"tags":[155,808],"class_list":["post-1399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-judiciary","tag-court","tag-imprisonment"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Federal-High-Court.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1399"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1400,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399\/revisions\/1400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}