…Court Resumes Trial Of Catholic Priest Who Impregnated Her
By NewsBits
More facts have emerged in the trial of a 36-year-old lawyer, Abasiesebanga Ikoiwak and five others, over the gruesome murder of her husband, 41-year-old Barrister Godwin Ikoiwak.
Until his death in January last year, Barrister Ikoiwak, a native of Eket Local Government Area, was a State Counsel at the State Ministry of Justice. At the hearing of the matter before an Uyo High Court, a friend and classmate of the deceased in the Faculty of Law, University of Calabar, Barrister Sunny Anyanwu said the deceased told him in a phone conversation few days before his death that he and his wife, Barrister Abasiesebanga Ikoiwak were having issues over infidelity.
He said the deceased hinted him that he reported the matter to his wife’s family who invited him to a meeting in their family compound in Nung Udoe Itak, Ikono Local Government Area, but did not return home alive.
Barr. Anyanwu who is the seventh prosecution witness in the matter, also said that late Barrister Godwin Ikoiwak told him that his wife, Barrister Abasiesebanga Ikoiwak was having sexual relationship with her former boss, a legal practitioner, Barrister C.I. Odoh.
He said the deceased husband told him that his wife had stayed with a Catholic priest, Rev. Father Maurice Mbeke as a house help and the Catholic priest impregnated her, and they had a child who is now 19 years old named after his maternal grandfather.
According to the prosecution witness, late Barrister Ikoiwak did not know that the boy who has been living with him in his house for years, was his wife’s own, because the wife said the child was her younger brother.
He said the deceased told him that each time his wife said she was pregnant, he does not set his eyes on her, until after the delivery of the baby, when she will present it to him and say, “this is your child”. The prosecution team led by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Akwa Ibom State, Barr. Joseph Umoren tendered the audio recordings, which was played in the open court.
