Lawyer jailed for forging land documents

Sunday Aborisade, Akure


An Okitipupa Chief Magistrates' Court has sentenced a lawyer, Mr. Juwon Semudara, to a six months imprisonment for forging and altering a land document.


http://odili.net/news/source/2010/sep/9/831.html

The document was a deed of conveyance dated January, 19, 1995.

In his judgment, the Magistrate, Mr. Siji Akirinsola, held that Semudara was guilty of the two offences levelled against him.

A certified true copy of the judgment was made available to our correspondent in Akure on Wednesday.

The magistrate added that the six months jail term would run concurrently.

He, however, gave the lawyer an option of paying N2,000 fine to regain his freedom.

A community in Igbokoda led by Primate S. O. Ayodele had dragged the lawyer to court and claimed that the community never sold a land to him.

But the lawyer claimed that he owned some plots of land at Igbokoda based on the disputed document.

The magistrate had further in his judgment, held that the complainants, the police investigator, a handwriting expert and a forensic analyst, testified that the document was forged.

He said that the convict invited Prince Estron Omowole as his witness but held that the prosecution had proved beyond reasonable doubt that the document was forged.

The magistrate said, ��Contrary to the claim of Estron Omowole that he was the one who signed the document, the court after reviewing the evidences of the witness, further held that the signature of Omowole, which he signed in court and with the police, was different from the signature on the land document.

��Omowole was only being clever by half when he admitted that he was the person who signed both documents because being a retired teacher, a veteran of the court per excellence, he must know the importance of appending signature to a document.

��The court therefore held that signature was not his own and that cogent direct and conclusive circumstantial evidence led to one possible conclusion that the accused who is the sole beneficiary of the forged document and who has presented it in several for a including the customary court in Igbokoda, was the one who forged it.��