The Lugbe Grade 1 Area Court in Abuja on Thursday sentenced a 27-year-old applicant, Mustapha Aliyu, to 16 months imprisonment for betraying and stealing from a POS operator.

Mr Aliyu, of no fixed address, was sentenced on a two-count charge of breach of trust and theft.

However, the judge, Aliyu Kagarko, gave the convict an option of a N40,000 fine.

Mr Kagarko said the punishment would have been stiffer if the convict had not saved the court from the rigour of protracted prosecution.

He also warned the convict to be of good behaviour.

The convict pleaded guilty and begged the court for leniency.

The prosecutor, Stanley Nwaforaku, had told the court that on December 28, the complainant, Aminu Abdulsalam of Area 10 Garki, Abuja, reported the matter at Garki Police Station.

Nwaforaku said that on December 20, the convict came to the complainant’s POS shop under the pretence that he wanted to check his bank account balance through his POS.

He said the convict collected the POS machine to check his bank account balance but dishonestly transferred N100,000 from the complainant’s POS account to his UBA account without his consent.

The prosecutor said during the police investigation, the convict made a confessional statement that he came to the complainant’s shop whenever he was not around to stay with his sales boy.

He told the court that N83,000 was recovered from the convict and the offence contravened sections 312 and 288 of the Penal Code. 

(NAN)