[1965]DLSC1854 • June 4, 1965 • Supreme Court •
STATE vs. BANFUL
The respondent, a 19-year-old schoolboy, was charged with the murder of his school's bursar by gunshot. Despite 24 prosecution witnesses, none provided direct or circumstantial evidence linking the respondent to the crime. The prosecution sought to admit a statutory statement allegedly confessing guilt, but the defense challenged its admissibility on grounds of involuntariness due to inducement and pressure by a senior police officer, involving the respondent's father and school headmaster.
read moreJUDGMENT OF OLLENNU J.S.C. Ollennu J.S.C. delivered the judgment of the court. This appeal is brought by the prosecution under section 337 of the Criminal Procedure Code 19601 as amended by section 10 of the Criminal Procedure Code (Amendment) (No. 2) 1962,2 and it is against three rulings made by Siriboe J., as he then was, one on 12 May 1964, one on 13 May 1964 and another on 19 May 1964. By the first ruling the learned judge rejected as inadmissible a statutory statement which the defendant, the respondent herein, had made before the committing magistrate; by the second he refused to state a case for the consideration of the Supreme Court on his first ruling; and by the third he ruled that there was no case to go to the jury. The defendant, a school boy aged about nineteen, was alleged to have murdered the bursar of his school by gun shot wound. As many as 24 witnesses were called for the prosecution, but none of them gave any material evidence direct or circumstantial which con...