A Chief Magistrate Court sitting in Song local government area in Adamawa has employed the services of a herbalist to obtain a confession from some suspects.
The incident occurred on Tuesday, November 3rd when the spiritualist, Garkuwa Sarkin Mayu, was invited to the court and used his charms extract confession from the suspects.
the accused Mallam Yusuf, Samaila Adamu, and Gaji Mallam were on trial for the alleged murder of a boy and also the bewitching of another for a year.
The suspects initially pleaded not guilty to the crime which made the court seek the services of Mayu. To extract the confession, Mayu ordered the supposed bewitched boy to lie down and instructed the accused to walk over him three times. After they did this, they began to confess to the crime and said they actually bewitched the boy but they removed the spell they cast on him.
The father to the allegedly bewitched child, Abubakar Umaru stated that the defendants gained access to his home and bewitched his three children Suleimanu, Nafisa, and Yusuf.
Yusuf later died and Umaru took Suleiman to Mayu who applied some herbs on the boy and he began to confess that he was bewitched by the three suspects which made Umaru take the case to court and demand a sum of N500,000. He stated that the money was the amount he spent in treating his children.
After the confession by the three suspects, a lawyer based in Yola, Barr. Sunday Wugira said the process was not acceptable and described it as an abuse of the court process.
He said: “The position of the law is that anyone who represents himself to be in possession of charm which is intended to be used to compel any person to do an act which such a person has a legal right to refrain from doing, shall be punished as provided under section 186 paragraph (a) and (b) of the penal code law.”
