Anambra Judge Blames Police For Death Of Suspects In Police Custody , Condemns torture by police To Get Information

                                         

An Ihiala High Court Judge, Justice J.I Nweje yesterday raised alarm on the number of reported death of suspects in police custody and demanded that the police should be held responsible for such deaths.

Nweje spoke during a lecture he delivered titled, “Enforcing the fundamental rights of the people in the quest for security of life and property in Anambra State”, at the law week of the Ihiala branch of the Nigeria Bar Association, NBA led by Chief Emmanuel Egbunonu.

In Justice Nweje words: “that this is a worthy objective cannot be gainsaid. Yet for the members of the bar, it should be a serious warning sign of the imminent breaches of the fundamental rights of people on a scale never seen before. It should be a call to duty.

The Judge commended the Directorate of Security Services, DSS, for its professional way of investigation of cases, and stressed the need for the bar and police to push for a more professional approach to criminal investigation which would de-emphasize torture in favour of forensic investigation adding, “having thus empowered the police, we must hold them to account for any sudden unnatural death in their custody, such cases must be treated as cases of murder, pure and simple”.

“There should be a forensic pathological examination of the causes and time of death of each suspect”.

“The bar should be at forefront of this campaign, we should push for a monitoring system and there should be process for monitoring every detention centre in the state and a reporting system where the police should submit a weekly report of all those arrested and detend in their custody within the week.

“We should not allow our fundamental right to trample upon by the police with impunity. If my little experience in the Ihiala judiciary Division is anything to go by, it is possible that more people die in police custody than are killed by armed robbers”.

Nweje went further to describe duties of the police : “Going by the above job description it could be seen that the very first duty assigned to the police is the duty of prevention of crime. One of the ways to prevent crime is by flushing out the criminals from the notorious trouble spots”.

“This could consist in the mass arrest and detention of those found in those troubled spots. The question that readily comes to mind is, what offence have those people committed to justify their arrest and detention”

“Are they criminal simply because they are found in the troubled spots. Some of us may have had some experience in this regard. You may have been a victim or you may know one of the victims of  a police raid of such troubled spots”.

“Those who fail the screening test may find themselves in detention for days. The more unfortunate amongst them may end up being remanded in prison custody just for being at the wrong place at the wrong time”

He stressed the need for professional touch by the police during investigation to avoid castigating and punishing the innocent for no just cause.

“I have taken the pains to review these causes to let you know that as the children will say, there is fire on the mountain”.

“That the police have done a great job in protecting our lives in Anambra state cannot be denied. The question is at what cost. From the cases reviewed so far there is no doubt that a lot of innocent people could have lost their lives in the process of providing security. This is therefore a time for the bar to rise up to ensure justice gets to the people”.

 He recalled that Governor Willie Obiano had during his swearing in ceremony vowed to fight crimes including, armed robbery, kidnapping among others adding that it was a welcome development but urged the members of the bar and bench to wake up to the challenges to avoid innocent people being punished by the law enforcement agents especially the police in the name of being a criminal.