Court Acquits Man of Armed Robbery after Five Years in Jail

An Osogbo High Court has discharged and acquitted Gideon Aycent of the offences of Conspiracy and Armed Robbery after about five years in detention.

Mr Aycent’s freedom followed the intervention of an Osogbo based lawyer, Mr Odunayo Henry who took over the brief free of charge.

For the first three years of his trial, Mr Aycent did not have any legal representation for his defence.

In her judgement, Justice Kudirat Akano agreed with the defence counsel, that the prosecution’s evidence was worthless and insufficient to secure the accused’s conviction in that circumstance.

Justice Akano further agreed with the defence that the prosecution’s case against the accused was predicated on mere suspicion that he, as a ‘tree felling machine’ operator must have cut the log of wood which the armed robbers allegedly used to block the Iwo-Ikire road during the robbery of 28th December, 2015.

The prosecution counsel from the Osun State Ministry of Justice had earlier argued that Gideon Aycent conspired with others in the said robbery incident.

Adenitan Akinola