JOHN OKOYE V. THE STATE

G. B. A. COKER, J.S.C. (Delivering the Leading Judgment): The appellant herein has appealed to this Court against his conviction for murder by Oputa J. (High Court, Onitsha). He was charged and tried on an Information which alleged that on the 19th March, 1970, at Isuh in the Onitsha Division of the East-Central State he murdered one Mgbankwo Nwuzo who was his own sister-in-law having been married to a brother of the appellant who died during the recent civil war. Six witnesses gave evidence for the prosecution at his trial but only one of them, Agnes Okoye, 2nd prosecution witness, was an eye-witness to the events leading to the death of Mgbankwo Nwuzo. The case for the prosecution is that on the day in question the appellant resented the action of Mgbankwo Nwuzo in hoisting sticks on the ground for the erection of a shed and, as she repeatedly gathered her sticks and tried to put them up again after he had pulled them down, the appellant kicked her with his foot on the waist and the…