A Karmo Grade 1 Area Court, Abuja, on Tuesday sentenced a cashier, Anthony Joseph, 26, to three months imprisonment for stealing a travel bag.
Joseph, who resides at Karmo village, Abuja, was arraigned on a two-count charge of theft and mischief.
The convict had pleaded guilty to the charge and begged the court for leniency.
The judge, Abubakar Sadiq, however, gave the convict the option to pay N10, 000 as fine.
Sadiq said the punishment would have been more severe if the accused had not pleaded guilty and saved the court the pains of prolonged prosecution.
He also ordered him to pay N10, 000 as compensation to the nominal complainant.
Earlier, the prosecutor, Dalhatu Zannah, told the court that one Sunday Nkwoji of Dape village reported the matter at the Karmo Police Station on Jan. 18.
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Zannah told the court that sometime in Nov. 2017 the convict visited the complainant and cleverly stole his travel bag valued at N4, 000.
He said that the convict stole the complainant’s bag containing his three ATM cards, a phone worth N6,000, a shoe and other valuable items.
The prosecutor said that the convict criminally attempted to use the complainant’s Diamond Bank ATM card with a wrong pin to withdraw money but the card was seized and one of the cards got damaged.
He said that during police investigation and interrogation, the convict admitted committing the offence while the bag, shoe and one Diamond Bank ATM card were recovered from him.
The prosecutor said to recover the other items valued N10, 000 proved abortive.
Zannah pointed out that the offence contravened the provisions of Sections 288 and 327 of the Penal Code.
Following the guilty plea of the convict, the prosecutor asked the court for summary trial in line with Section 347 of the Administration of Criminal Justices Act, 2015.
