A 39-year-old man, Monday Effiong who called his father a wizard and beat him to death, has been sentenced to life imprisonment by an Akwa Ibom State High Court.

Effiong who is a bricklayer accused his 68-year-old father of being spiritually responsible for the inability of his wife to become pregnant.

The prosecution had during the trial, had maintained that the convict, on 27th May 2017, upon the complaint of his wife against her father-in-law, dealt his father deadly blows before pushing him to the ground.

The prosecution said that the convict locked the father up in his room and returned with a patent medicine dealer but found the elderly man dead.

Presiding judge, Justice Bassey Nkanang while delivering his judgement, held that the convict could not by guilty of murder as he had not intention of killing his father. But he found him guilty of manslaughter.

“Whereas it was the act of the accused person that resulted in the death of the deceased, the six circumstances provided for in section three-two-three of the Criminal Code, Laws of Akwa Ibom State, which identifies what constitutes murder, appear to be absent in the entire scenario of the case, ” he said.

He said, “the position of the Court, on the extent to which evidence at trial, has established the three ingredients of murder, is that, the deceased is dead and the act of the accused person is responsible for the death, there is insufficient evidence to prove the third mandatory ingredient in a charge of murder.

“The position of the law is that the particulars of the lesser offence must be capable of being subsumed in the original charge such that it is possible to carve out the lesser offense from the particulars of the original charge, which was murder.

“it is this law that vests the trial court with the power to convict for a lesser offence, where the ingredients of the said lesser offence are contained in the aggravated charge and are found proved.”

The judge then went on to sentence him to life imprisonment.