Some reprieve may finally come the way of the Nigerian community in South-Africa as news reports state that eight members of the South-African police have been arrested for the torture and murder of Nigerian national in October 2017.
The Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) revealed that the South- African Police officers were arrested in connection with the murder of Ibrahim Olamilekan Badmus in October of 2017; a murder which generated a lot of outcry within the Nigerian community in the country.
According to the IPID spokesperson Moses Dlamini, the police officer consisting of two women and six men were arrested on Friday.
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Dlamini said further that Badmus, 25, was allegedly killed when the officers interrogated and suffocated him on October 10, 2017, in Vanderbijlpark.
“According to the police, they had found drugs on the deceased, but this was a false story to cover up the torture and murder of the deceased.
There was a huge outcry from the Nigerian community when the death was discovered. At the time, the police also alleged that they were attacked by ‘drug dealers’,” Dlamini said.
The PTID spokesperson revealed further that its investigators had gone ahead to investigate the issue despite a multitude of hostility from members of the South-African Police Service although post-mortem tests conducted by two qualified pathologists confirmed that the deceased had indeed been tortured.
“The docket was referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for prosecution and the DPP decided that the eight suspects be charged for murder and torture.” He concluded.
The officers will appear in the Vanderbijlpark Magistrate’s Court on Monday.
The move comes in the backdrop of several meetings between the Nigerian Community in South-Africa and the South-African government as well as the High Commission in Nigeria.
The series of meetings had been deemed necessary due to the incessant murder of Nigerians in the country by South-African security personnel who always claim the deceased were drug dealers.