An Osun State High Court in Osogbo has adjourned the murder trial of a postgraduate student of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Timothy Adegoke; after all the defendants of suit entered no-case submission.
A no-case submission means that there is ‘no case to answer’ by the defendant which can be made in a contested criminal matter, after the close of the prosecution case.
At the resumed hearing today, the presiding Judge and Chief Justice of Osun State High Court, Adepele Ojo, granted the defence counsel’s request to move its no-case submission, and adjourned hearing in the matter till March 25.
Ojo, however asked the prosecution counsel, M. Amosun, to swiftly respond to all the defence counsel’s written and oral addresses in their no-case submission, within four days of receipt of same.
The defence counsel also prayed the court to grant each of them 48 hours to respond to the prosecution’s report.
While adjourning the case, the judge ordered all the four defence counsels in the case, to file a separate no-case submission each, within the stipulated time.
Recall that the Chairman of Hilton Hotel, Ile-Ife, Dr Rahmon Adedoyin, and six others, have been on trial over the alleged murder of Adegoke.
The six defendants are: Magdalene Chiefuna, Adeniyi Aderogba, Oluwole Florence, Oyetunde Kazeem, Adebayo Kunle and Adedeji Adesola.
The defendants had earlier pleaded not guilty to the 11 counts bordering on conspiracy, murder, attempted felony, unlawful interference with a dead body, altering and intent to destroy evidence.
The case file number —HOS/5C/2022 dated February 14 and filed on February 17, 2022, had earlier been substituted with —HOS/5C/ 2022, dated February 22 and filed on March 2, 2022.
Earlier, prosecution had called a witness, which is the PW 8, DSP Samuel Odeh, a forensic scientist with the Force headquarters, who disclosed that the department conducted a swab stick analysis to identify a substance on a curtain brought to the laboratory.
The report of the analysis was tendered in exhibit, although all the defence counsel objected to the admissibility of the report, but reserved the grounds of their objections to written address stage.
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