Innocent Anaba
18 April 2008
The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and Amnesty International have appealed to the Imo State government to release one Patrick Okoroafor, who was sentenced to death by the Robbery and Firearms tribunal, when he was sixteen and has been in custody since them, despite an order of Imo State High Court, which had ordered him to be released.
The groups in a statement in Lagos, said "Okoroafor and his six co-defendants were sentenced to death by the First Imo State Robbery and Firearms Tribunal on May 30, 1997, at the age of sixteen.
This tribunal denied them right to appeal. Okoroafor and one of his co-defendants, Chidiebere Onuoha, who was fifteen at the time of arrest, petitioned the Military Administrator of Imo State for clemency on grounds of age.
"The Military Administrator confirmed the death sentences of the six co-defendants on July 18 1997 and commuted Okoroafor's sentence to life imprisonment. On July 31, 1997, the six men were publicly shot to death. Onuoha was seventeen years old when he was executed", the statement added.
The groups, meanwhile, are asking the Imo state governor, Mr Ikedi Ohakim, to release Okoroafor. Okoroafor is currently incarcerated in Aba prison, Abia State, despite a High Court judgement of October 18, 2001 that pronounced the sentence of death on him to be illegal, null and void.
He is currently detained under section 368 (3) of the Criminal Procedure Act permitting his imprisonment "during the pleasure of the governor". His detention is indefinite and in violation of international law", said the statement. According to the statement, "Okoroafor has been denied the right to a fair trial.
He never had an appeal, a human right guaranteed by the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, ratified by Nigeria in 1983, and the International Cove-nant on Civil and Political Rights, which Nigeria ratified in 1993.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by Nigeria in 1991, similarly guarantees the right to appeal to a higher and independent judicial body by providing that the "decision and any measure imposed in consequence thereof reviewed by a higher competent, indepen-dent and impartial authority or judicial body according to law."
The 1999 Constitution of Nigeria guaran-tees the right to appeal. In May 2000, the High Court of Imo State allowed Okoroafor to file a Notice for an Order of Certiorari to remove the proceedings and judgement of the First Imo State Robbery and Firearms Tribunal and to release him from prison. He was, however, not accorded a full right of appeal and the review by the High Court was limited.
On October 18, 2001, the High Court ruled that "the order of sentence of death pronounced on the Applicant by 2nd respondent on the 30 of May 1997 be removed to this court and quashed for being illegal, null and void." Rather than being released as a consequence of this order, the court ruled that "in its place, the applicant is to be detained during the pleasure of the Governor of Imo State", the statement added.
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