Absence of witnesses stall hearing of Offa robbery suspects

Adekunle Jimoh, IlorinHearing of April 5th, 2018 Offa, Offa local government area of Kwara state, robbery suspects could not continue on Tuesday as a result of absence of prosecution witnesses.All the accused persons; Ayoade Akinnibosun, Ibikunle Ogunleye, Adeola Abraham, Salahudeen Azeez and Niyi Ogundiran were present in court.Prosecution counsel, Bola Gold told the court that police officers who are the prosecution witnesses in the matter were on national assignment for the last Saturday rerun elections in some parts of the country and had not returned to their base.As a result, Mr. Gold prayed the court for an adjournment, which the defence counsel, Mathias Emeribe, did not oppose.Gold said our witnesses who are police officers participated in the last Saturday exercise. So they are unavoidably absent. I am sorry my Lord we will pick another date.Read Also: Seven Offa travellers kidnapped on Kaduna- Abuja highway rescuedI have discussed with the defence counsel and we agreed on a day for adjournment.In granting the adjournment, the trial judge Haleema Salman, warned both the defence and prosecuting counsels against unnecessary delay in the hearing of matter.She expressed dissatisfaction that no appreciable progress had been made in the hearing of the case since 2018 when it started due to request for adjournments by the counsels.She said that this is almost two into the case, we are yet to make any appreciable progress. The case has been unnecessarily delayed due to adjournment.The judge said that both counsels should be prepared to end the trial within trial in the next adjourned date so that hearing proper in the suit could commence same day.She subsequently adjourned the case to February 10, 2020 for continuation of hearing and trial within trial.
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