Fuel Attendants Bag 20 Years For Acid Attack

An Umuahia Chief Magistrates’ Court last Friday sentenced two staff members of a filling station to 10 years in prison for attempting to murder their colleague by pouring acid on  him .

Ijeoma Amarachi, 25 (F), and Ndubuisi Johnson 27(M) were charged with conspiracy and attempted murder of one Anyalewechi Onwuchekwa, all staff of Bawas Filling Station at Umuabali in Umuahia North Local Government Area.

The prosecution said the duo committed the act at Bawas Filling Station on Sept.13, 2008.

Delivering the judgment in Umuahia, Chief Magistrate John Ukpai said that after reviewing the submissions by the prosecution and defence counsel, the court was convinced that the accused persons committed the offence as charged.

He said the 10 year-jail term to run concurrently with hard labour was because the convicts were first offenders.

“After reviewing this case and the evidence before me, I am convinced that the two persons committed this crime and for doing such, they are supposed to be kept out of the environment where right thinking people stay for some time,’’ he said.

In another charge, the court sentenced Amarachi and Okorie to seven years in prison each for conspiring to steal N14.8 million, property of the filling station.

The duo were accused by the prosecution to have between Jan.1, 2008 and Aug. 31, 2008, conspired to steal the said amount.

The prosecution said the offence contravened the Criminal Code, Cap.77, Laws of the Federation, 1990, and was punishable under same laws as applicable to Abia State.

Ukpai equally ruled that the evidence before his court showed that the accused persons also committed the act.

The defence counsel, Mr Okechukwu Uche, had after listing to a review of the matters, appealed to the court to tamper justice with mercy, noting that his clients were first offenders.

Reacting to the judgment, both Chief Uche Akwuegbu, the chairman of Bawas Filling Station, and the victim of the acid attack, Onwuchekwa, said they were happy that justice had finally been done in the matter.

Onwuchekwa, a 1987 OND Accountancy graduate from the Institute of Management and Technology, Enugu, attended the court session with two of his four children.

The children shed tears shortly after the sentence as they beheld  the people who defaced  their father with acid.

“I left school to see if the court will say that these people are not responsible for pouring acid on my daddy’s face, but with justice done, I feel a little relief,’’ Uchechukwu, one of the children, told  newsmen.