Obina Christopher Ezeoke was found guilty of two counts of murder after a fifth trial in 2020 – Metropolitan Police
An assassin jailed for life for shooting dead a mother and her sleeping nephew in north London has won a European human rights claim.
A European court has ruled that 32-year-old Obina Christopher Ezeoke’s human rights were breached because it took so long for his case to be tried.
He faced five trials before finally being convicted of the murders and jailed for life with a recommendation that he should serve a minimum of 40 years.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled that the five-year court process that it took before Ezeoke was convicted breached Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This requires any suspect to have a fair public hearing within a “reasonable time”.
Covid delays
The first trial ended due to the illness of the judge and the second because the jury could not reach a verdict. The third – and first retrial – also ended because a different jury could not reach a verdict, and the fourth – a second retrial – ended due to the Covid pandemic.
Even though the delays and conclusions of the hearings were outside the control of the courts or government, the Strasbourg court still ruled it was a breach.
However, Ezeoke’s case for immediate release from his life term in prison was rejected. The court ruled that despite the delay, his conviction and sentence were not unfair and therefore were not in breach of Article 6 in those respects. The court also said he was not eligible for compensation.
Robert Jenrick, shadow justice secretary, said: “This is the latest extraordinary example of judicial activism by the Strasbourg court. It only seems to get worse.”
Ezeoke executed the student Bervil Kalikaka-Ekofo, 21, and his aunt Annie Ekofo, 53, after sneaking in through the unlocked door of their apartment in East Finchley, north London, in Sept 2016.
The killing was intended as a revenge hit after rivals – including Ekofo’s son, Ryan Efey, 22 – shared footage of him being attacked on Snapchat, the Old Bailey heard. Efey was probably the intended target, but Ezeoke decided he would kill anyone in the flat.
Ezeoke fired a bullet into the back of the psychology student Kalikaka-Ekofo’s head with a vintage Western-style revolver at the apartment in East Finchley.
He then wheeled around and blasted the victim’s aunt in the chest with the Smith and Wesson.44 when she came out of her bedroom dressed in her underwear.
‘Cold, callous and brutal murders’
Sentencing him, the judge Mrs Justice Cutts said she had considered a whole-life order but ultimately opted for life with a minimum term of 40 years. She said: “Your cold, callous and brutal murders of two people has not only cut short their lives but has ruined the lives of many.”
Juries in May 2018 and March 2019 failed to reach verdicts, despite the majority of jurors supporting a conviction. In 2017, the trial was stopped after a judge was forced to withdraw with agonising back pain.
Prosecutors made the exceptional choice to pursue a fifth trial after his last hearing collapsed because of the coronavirus pandemic in March. Defence solicitors for the killer had argued against a fifth trial, saying “enough is enough”.
In his submission to the European court, Ezeoke argued that the repeated trials and the delay “had such a detrimental effect on the quality of the defence evidence that the outcome of the fifth trial was ‘at least arguably’ unsafe”. He was held in a category A high-security jail throughout the process after his arrest.
The European court found there were two delays that were “problematic”, notably the year between the third and fourth trial, and the six months before his permission to appeal was rejected.
It unanimously held “there has been a violation of Article 6 of the Convention on account of the excessive length of the criminal proceedings against the applicant”.
