A Dei-Dei Grade 1 Area Court, Abuja, on Thursday, sentenced a 22-year-old panel beater, Dauda Hashimu to nine months imprisonment, for stealing cell phones.
Dauda of Zone 7 Dawaki Abuja, pleaded guilty to theft and begged the court for leniency.
The Judge, Mr Sulyman Ola, however, gave the convict an option to pay a fine of N30,000 for the count charge and warned him to desist from committing crimes in the future.
Earlier the Prosecution Counsel, Mr Chinedu Ogada told the court that on July 14 the complainant, Murtala Mohammed Of the address reported the matter at the Dawaki Police Station.
Ogada said the convict smartly made away with the complainant’s two cell phones valued at N 5,000 each and absconded to an unknown destination but was tracked and re-arrested.
He told the court that the convict used the stolen phones and called the complainant’s contact telling them to inform the owner to pay a ransom before collecting the said phones.
The prosecutor said the convict later sold the phone and during police investigation, he confessed to the crime and all efforts made to recover the phones from him prove abortive.
The prosecutor said the offence contravened section 287 of the Penal Code.
