KAKATA, Margibi – The 13th Judicial circuit court in Kakata has sentenced two murderers to a 50-year sentence and death by hanging.
The convicts, 54-year-old Garpue Gayeezon and 55-year-old Arthur Wakai, were sentenced last week after a panel of jurors brought down the unanimous guilty verdict.
Gayeezon and Wakai were convicted of felony murder in the first degree for killing Peter Gaye, a resident of Doe-Gboteh Town, Margibi County on July 29th, 2015.
According to the prosecution, Wakai ordered Gayeezon to kill Gaye for a compensation of about US$110. Wakai had accused the deceased of being in a romantic affair with his wife.
“He refused to back off despite complaining about him to the elders of the town,†Wakai had told the prosecution.
The prosecution showed that three shots from a single barrel gun had killed Gaye.
Although the defendants pleaded not guilty to their indictment before the court, the prosecution provided two state witnesses, the single barrel gun and the three shots that were used for the commission of the crime.
Two state witnesses testified that Gayeezon and Wakai confessed to the elders of the clan and in their voluntary statements to the police.
Margibi County public defender Klon Nyangbe waived further arguments into the matter before the unanimous guilty verdict.
In 2008, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf signed into law an act reinstating the death penalty in Liberia. International organizations such as the United Nations Economic and Social Council and the International Bar Association both condemned Liberia’s restoration of capital punishment and pointed out that it violated Liberia’s international obligation as a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’ Second Optional Protocol aimed at abolishing the death penalty.
Featured photo by Gbatemah Senah
