A European court has ruled that an assassin who shot dead a mother-of-nine and her sleeping nephew in a botched revenge hit has had his human rights breached.
Obina Christopher Ezeoke, 32, sneaked into the family home of student Bervil Kalikaka-Ekofo, 21, and his aunt Annie Ekofo, 53, through their unlocked front door and executed them in September 2016.
But the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has now ruled that Ezeoke’s human rights were breached due to the lengthy wait for his case to be tried, The Telegraph reported.
Ezeoke carried out the revenge hit after footage of him being attacked was shared on Snapchat by rivals – including Ms Ekofo’s son Ryan Efey, the Old Bailey heard.
Mr Efey was probably the intended target but Ezeoke decided he would kill anyone in the flat.
Ezeoke was finally convicted at the fifth attempt after the previous four trials ended with either a split decision or fell apart due to external circumstances.
The original trial in 2017 was stopped after a judge was forced to withdraw with agonising back pain.
Juries in May 2018 and March 2019 failed to reach verdicts, despite the majority of jurors supporting a conviction in both instances.
Prosecutors made the exceptional choice to pursue a fifth trial after the previous hearing collapsed due to the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020.
Ezeoke’s legal team made the case for refusing a fifth trial, saying ‘enough is enough’ but the prosecution eventually got the green-light.
He was eventually convicted in September 2020 and handed a life sentence, with the judge recommending he should serve at least 40 years behind bars.
The court ruled that the gap between his arrest and conviction breached Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to ‘a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law.’
While the delays in bringing Ezeoke to justice were beyond the control of either the court system or the government, the court in Strasbourg nevertheless ruled that the killer’s rights had been breached.
Ezeoke’s legal team also sought his release from prison and compensation for the breach, which was rejected by the court.
Judges at the ECHR found that while the trial delays constituted a breach of human rights, the conviction and sentence were both fair and not in breach of Article 6.
The shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said: ‘This is the latest extraordinary example of judicial activism by the Strasbourg court. It only seems to get worse.’
Ezeoke fired a bullet into the back of psychology student Bervil’s head with a vintage Western-style revolver at her apartment in East Finchley, North London.
He then wheeled around and blasted the victim’s aunt Annie Ekofo, 53, in the chest with the Smith and Wesson .44 when she came out of her bedroom dressed only in her underwear.
Neither Bervil nor Annie were the intended targets, the court was told.
Ezeoke carried out the killings as part of a ‘vendetta of violence’ before fleeing the scene in a Vauxhall Meriva at around 6.30am.
He maintained that he had been on Grahame Park estate in North London with four friends at the time of the murders.
The killer claimed that gunshot residue particles discovered in the getaway car, which evidence showed had been bought and insured by him under a false name, came from a different shooting when others had used the vehicle.
But an Old Bailey jury convicted him of the two murders after deliberating for 41 hours and ten minutes over eight days.
