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Nigeria: Police Torture Suspect to Death for Stealing Palm Oil
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Daily Trust (Abuja)
27 September 2007
Posted to the web 27 September 2007
Lawal Ibrahim
Katsina
A police sergeant who allegedly tortured a prisoner to death has been arrested in Katsina, police said yesterday.
Umar Sani, attached to a police outstation in Yargoje village of Kankara local government area is accused of killing 25-year-old Surajo Mohammed arrested for stealing palm oil in the area last week.
Mohammed, a native of the village, was apprehended by passers-by in the area after he broke into a palm oil shop and stole a jerrycan of the oil and attempted to run away with it.
The people of the village after apprehending the suspect took him to the police out station in the area where they handed him over to the police sergeant on duty for interrogation and possible prosecution. They were shocked to hear later he had died at the police out station.
The Katsina state police commissioner, Mr. Dan'azumi Doma, who confirmed the incident to Daily Trust in his office, said the police sergeant has been arrested and transferred to the police Criminal Investigation Department at the headquarters and that investigation was ongoing over the matter.
He said as soon as the police concluded its investigation the policeman would be charged to court for culpable homicide. He said policemen like that should not be shielded for their negligent behaviour.
"I am aware of the case and as soon as I receive a report on it I ordered for the arrest of the officer because we are here to save life but if because of your negligence you cause the death of a person, you should go and explain it to the court. So we are still investigating and will charge him to court".
He said gone were the days when the police exerted some unorthodox means of interrogation to extract information from suspects, noting that his command will do all that is possible to protect the rights and dignity of human person.
It will be recalled that only last week, the state police commissioner urged the visiting minister of interior, Major General Godwin Abbe, to assist the police to acquire modern scientific gadgets of interrogating suspects in custody to help curb the excessive and unorthodox means of extracting information, which they employed to suspects from across the country.
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The state police commissioner also discloses to Daily Trust in his office yesterday that the police are also investigating a case of another corpse found inside a bush in the same Kankara local government area of the state, after the deceased boarded a commercial vehicle to the neighbouring Danmusa local government.
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