Fatal abortion: Court rules doctor has case to answer

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A Magistrate’s Court in Yaba, Lagos, western Nigeria, on Monday held that a 35-year-old doctor, Edeye Monday, had a case to answer over his alleged murder of a 22-year-old pregnant woman, Tolani Aderoju.

The Police Prosecutor, Insp. Godwin Anyanwu, while arraigning Monday in court on 31 July 2012, said the accused on May 29, 2012, injected Aderoju with some unidentified drugs, while attempting to abort her pregnancy.

The prosecutor had told the court that Aderoju’s mother, in her complaint, said her daughter had informed her that she was pregnant for one Mufutau Alonge.

She said that Alonge had taken her daughter to Monday’s private clinic for an abortion.

According to the prosecutor, the accused, after injecting Aderoju with the drugs, and failed to induce the termination of the pregnancy, rushed her to another hospital, where she died.

Anyanwu said that the offence contravened Section 221 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011, and that the penalty was the death sentence.

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But the court adjourned the matter till today to await the advice of the State Director of Public Prosecution’s (DPP) on the matter, while it ordered that the accused be remanded in prison custody.

At the resumed hearing of the case on Monday, the Magistrate, Mrs Adekorede Ajibade, said: “a murder case has been established against the accused.

“Consequently, his case will be transferred to a court of superior record”.

She said that legal advice from the DPP had established a prima facie case of unlawful killing against the accused.

Ajibade consequently ordered that the case file be transferred to the High Court, for trial.

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