“The law is that, where the Court is satisfied of the truth of
the confession, the fact that the accused person retracted
same would be of no moment and the Court is at liberty to
rely on it to ground conviction”.
It is to be noted that the defendant in this case in his evidence while
testifying as DW1 did not say that he did not make exhibit A and A1 what he
said was that he could not remember whether he made exhibit A and A1. In a
situation such as this, it is the duty of the Court in the light of the entire
evidence adduced to decide whether in fact the defendant made the
statement or not. I have considered exhibit a and A1 and also the evidence on
PW3 and PW4 who were together with both the defendant and the deceased
when the incident happened and I’m satisfied beyond any doubt that it was
the defendant that made exhibit A which was translated into English and
admitted in evidence as exhibit A1.
It is to be noted that for the prosecution to succeed on a charge of
Culpable Homicide punishable with death the following 3 ingredients of the
offence must be proved beyond reasonable doubt i.e.
1. The deceased must have died.
2. That the death of the deceased was caused by the accused.
3. That the act of the deceased was done with the intention of causing
death or that the accused knew that death would be the probable
consequence of his act. On this see Umaru v. State (2020) LPELR
50005 CA.
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