Crime
Police killed five suspects, shot three others in my presence, alleges man arrested over Offa robbery
A suspected armed robber, Salawudeen Azeez, on Friday narrated how policemen allegedly shot dead six suspects in his presence to coerce him into admitting he participated in the 5 April 2018 robbery incident in Kwara State.
Azeez also told the State High Court in Ilorin, the capital of Kwara state, that the police shot three others in the legs ad threatened similar fate awaited him if he did not role in the robbery incident that left 18 people, including policemen, dead.
He dismissed his confessional statement has extracted from him under duress and with threats to his life while under interrogation.
All the accused persons, Ayoade Akinnibosun, Ibikunle Ogunleye, Adeola Abraham, Salahudeen Azeez and Niyi Ogundiran, were present in court.
Azeez, the fourth defendant, had said earlier during cross-examination in the trial within trial:
“That same day, Inspector Hassan directed Officer Vincent to go and bring five people from somewhere. They asked me to watch what they would do to the five persons and that they would do the same to me if I didn’t cooperate with them.
“They killed the five persons in my presence. They also shot Akinnibosun, Adeola and Ogunleye in the legs in my presence. They threatened to kill me but I started begging that I didn’t do anything wrong.
“They said Ogunleye and I robbed in Offa and I denied this, but they insisted. They beat me mercilessly inside a generator house otherwise called theatre.
“It is a lie that they interrogated me in a conducive environment.
“On the second day, I was brought out again from the cell. They showed a man to me and asked me whether I knew him. The man is Michael Adikwu. I said I didn’t know him.
“They also asked him whether he knows me but he said no. They killed him in my presence.
“I pleaded with them not to kill me because my children are still young.
“They tied me down and hung me again. I then asked them what they wanted from me when the torture became unbearable.”
Salawu further claimed that he was forced to thumbprint a statement already prepared by the police against his consent.
This was even as defence counsel, Mathias Emeribe, prayed the court to order the exhumation of the corpse of a principal suspect in the robbery, Michael Adikwu, who allegedly died in police custody in Abuja.
This, he said, was necessary to determine whether the cause of Adikwu’s death was natural or otherwise.
He said that attempts by the prosecution to impress it on the court that there are only five suspects in the case amount to suppression of facts.
He recalled that when the case first came up in October 2018, six suspects were listed on the charge sheet, including Michael Adikwu, who the police later claimed to have died in their custody.
Mr. Emeribe, therefore, urged the court not to rely on the confessional statements of the suspects.
He added that the contradictions in the evidence of prosecution “are not witnesses of truth,” urging “the court to hold that the prosecution is lying.”
But prosecution counsel, Prof Abdulwahab Egbewole (SAN), said that contradictions in the dates when the suspects claimed they were interrogated and the police records showed that they were only cooking up stories about their alleged torture and coercion.
He, therefore, urged the court not to admit the confessional statements by the suspects.
The presiding judge, Justice Haleema Salman, adjourned the case to July 22.
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