A Federal High Court sitting in Jos on Tuesday, October 29, ordered the Inspector-General of Police (I-GP) and Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari, in charge of Intelligence Response Team (IRT), to produce a suspect before it dead or alive.
Justice Dorcas Agishi of Federal High Court 1, gave the order in her ruling on two applications filed before her by Mr D.G. Dashe, Counsel to the suspect, Mr Nanpon Sambo, who is alleged to have died in police custody in Abuja.
The judge gave the police two weeks within which to produce the suspect or face the wrath of the law. News Agency of Nigeia (NAN) reports that Dashe had on Sept. 25 filed the two applications, praying the court to order the I-GP and Kyari to produce Sambo, who is standing trial over alleged illegal possession of fire arms.
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The application followed an earlier claim by the police, through their Counsel, Mr Joshua Ayanna, that the suspect died in their custody in July.
The judge held that: “this honorable court is of the view that if the defendant is dead as claimed by the police, they should, within two weeks, produce his body at the Jos University Teaching Hospital mortuary for positive identification by a licensed medical practitioner under the supervision of the registrar federal high court Jos.
“Again, if the defendant has already been buried by the police, the police are hereby ordered to exhume the corpse of the defendant and produce it at the Jos university teaching hospital for positive forensic and DNA identification by a licensed medical practitioner.” Agishi warned that failure to comply with the order within the stipulated time of two weeks would attract dire consequences.
Earlier, The Herald reported that the Head of the Inspector General of Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT), Abba Kyari, came under fire from Nigerians for a photo op of his team in a bush on the Abuja-Kaduna Expressway.
A presidential aide, Bashir Ahmad, who shared the photos, stated that the team stormed the area to “hunt kidnappers, bandits and other criminals hiding in the bushes”.