Cameroonian To Die By Hanging For Killing Employer
Justice Adedayo Akintoye of the Lagos State High Lagos in Igbosere on Tuesday convicted and sentenced a Cameroonian cook, Leudjou Koyemen Joel, to death by hanging for killing his Nigerian employer, Miss Dayo Adeleke in 2016.
The state had accused the convict of stabbing his 33-year-old employer to death because she rejected his request for a two week salary advance.
He stabbed Adeleke, daughter of the late Brigadier General Adekola Alfred Adeleke, in the neck and heart, shortly after she returned from the office to her home at No. 15, Prince Tayo Adesanya Street, Park View Estate, Ikoyi, Lagos.
The prosecution told the court that the victim was found lying on the floor of her living room in a pool of blood. A kitchen knife was found stuck in the left side of her chest. She was rushed to St. Nicholas Hospital on Lagos Island, where a doctor on duty confirmed her dead.
The condemned convict was later arrested at the gate of the deceased’s Estate gate, while attempting to run away.
Joel a refugee from Cameroon that was being rehabilitated in a church in Lagos, was employed by Adeleke on compassionate grounds following a request by the pastor of the church.
Seven months later, and exactly three months after her engagement her fiancée, she was murdered.
In her judgment delivered on Tuesday, Justice Adedayo Akintoye convicted Joel and ordered that he be hanged to death.
She maintained that the prosecution was able to prove its case against the convict beyond a reasonable doubt through its witnesses and material evidence.
Joel, who opened his defence on November 21, 2018, denied killing Adeleke. He spoke through a French translator.
Led in evidence by his counsel, Mr. C. Acnonye, he confirmed that before the incident, he approached his boss twice to pay him part of his salary as his child was very ill in Cameroon and he needed money for hospital bills.
He said the first time he asked for part payment of his salary was on December 16, then the second time was on December 18, two days before Adeleke was killed.
He stated that on day of the incident, after cleaning her apartment, he knelt down and pleaded with her to give him a loan, “but that she became upset suddenly and started shouting and screaming at me, so I thought that it was the situation in her office that was making her shout.”
He told Justice Akintoye that Adeleke suddenly stood up began speaking a language he did not understand, but that from the look on her face, he knew that she was very furious.
The defendant claimed that his employer pushed him and he fell. She started beating him on his head, so he closed his eyes.
He said: “I was perceiving smell of alcohol. When I opened my eyes, I saw her with a knife, then I tried to run away. But she was rushing towards me.
“When I got to the entrance door, I noticed that she was no longer running after me but kept screaming. When I turned, I saw that she fell on the floor, with the knife in her chest.”
