An FCT High Court, sitting in Gwagwalada on Wednesday sentenced a 22- year-old student, Ammar Mohammed, to six months imprisonment for defrauding a foreigner of 850 dollars.
Delivering judgment, Justice A. O Ebong, warned him to desist from committing crimes and be of good behaviour, while giving an option to pay a fine of N400,000.
Earlier, the defence counsel, Richard Aneke, prayed the court to temper justice with mercy, saying that Mohammed upon arrest confessed to the crime and immediately restituted the sum benefited; including the instrument an i phone 12 Promax used for the crime.
He said Mohammed honoured all invitations by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) since he was granted administrative bail and was remorseful.
“Regarding sentencing, in a way of allocutus the defendant’s circumstances is saddening and unfortunate, he is a young man of 22-year-old and a student.
“He is the guardian of his younger brother who is presently in primary three, the defendant’s mother died early and his father is presently in Kano State married to another woman.
” His father has relinquish all his parent responsibility to the defendant,” he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the prosecution counsel, Fadila Yusuf, told the court that Mohammed and his counsel had entered and signed a plea bargain on Nov. 12, 2021.
The EFCC charged Mohammed on one count of Impersonation.
The commission said that the defendant sometimes in August 2021at Gwagwalada Area Council did cheat by Impersonation.
He pretended to be an American Military personnel in Afghanistan by the name Mabry Andrew on Facebook and obtained the sum of 850 dollars from a nurse named Lonnie who lives in Georgia, U.S.
The offence, the EFCC said, contravened Section 321 (b) of the Penal Code. (NAN)
