Facts
The appellant appealed against conviction and sentence for murder. He challenged the conviction on, inter alia, the ground that the testimony of one witness in court differed with the statement of the same witness made to the police one day after the event; in particular about the sequence of events. Another ground was that the trial court was wrong to disbelieve the reasonable and likely version by the appellant because the Trial Magistrate had made up her mind that the appellant was a liar.
Held:
(i) All the three versions of evidence given by three different witnesses yielded the same basic message, that the appellant issued threats to the effect that the deceased had done something bad to the appellant for which the deceased would have had to pay on the day he was murdered.
(ii) The appellant did utter the threats to the deceased and this was a circumstance to be taken into account in considering the guilt or otherwise of the appellant.
(iii) It is improper to use evidence of a hostile witness which has to be thrown out in toto however in this case there was evidence of the appellant himself that he did instruct the hostile witness to throw away the weapon alleged to have been used for the murder, into a latrine or into a river.
(iv) Every magistrate or judge has got his or her own style of composing a judgment, and what vitally matters is that the essential ingredients should be there, and these include
critical analysis of both the Prosecution and the Defence.
(v) The conduct of the appellant of disappearing from his abode soon after the event of murder and his explanations show that he was responsible for the murder.
(vi) Although motive is not discernible on the record but motive does not have to be established to bring the charge home.
Case Information
Appeal dismissed.
No comments:
Post a Comment