A Federal High Court in Abuja Wednesday delivered the judgment on the killing of six traders in Abuja by policemen on 7 June 2005.
Two of the policemen, standing trial, were sentenced to death, while three others were discharged, in the judgement delivered today by Justice Ishaq Bello.
Those condemned to death are Emmanuel Baba and Ezekiel Acheneje, while Danjuma Ibrahim, Nicholas Zakariah and Sadiq Salami were discharged.
The five were among the six arraigned over the killing of the traders on suspicion that they were armed robbers.
The sixth person on the charge sheet, Othman Abdulsalam, who was the Divisional Police Officer in Apo, is on the run.
The accused persons were arraigned on a nine-count charge of conspiracy and culpable homicide, which contravened the provisions of Sections 97 and 221 (a) of the Penal Code Law.
Their victims were young traders, including a woman, aged between 21 and 25.
They were: Ifeanyi Ozor, Chinedu Meniru, Isaac Ekene, Paulinus Ogbonna, Anthony Nwodike and a female Augustina Arebun.
The defendants allegedly played different parts in the killing of the victims while they were returning from a night party on 7 June 2005 in Abuja.
Following their deaths and the subsequent public outcry, an official panel of inquiry was set up by ex- President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration to unravel the plot.
The report of the panel said that the victims were at a nightclub located at Gimbiya Street, Area 11 in Abuja on the night of the incident.