Chukwudumeme Onwuamadike,
suspected kidnap kingpin better known as Evans, on Friday narrated how he was
allegedly tortured by members of intelligence response team of the inspector
general of police (IGP) and the special anti-robbery squad (SARS).
Evans narrated this at the
continuation of a trial-within-trial at an Ikeja high court in Lagos where he
is facing a two-count charge of conspiracy and kidnapping alongside six others.
NAN said before his testimony, a
five-minute, 33-second video recording was played in the courtroom.
The video recording showed Idowu
Haruna, a member of the IG’s intelligence response team, sitting beside Evans
cautioning him and taking his statement.
Olanrewaju Ajanaku, Evans’
lawyer, however, disputed the validity of the recording by claiming it was
heavily edited.
Evans, while being led in
evidence by Ajanaku, described himself as a businessman dealing in haulage and
ornaments, resident at 3, Fred Soyebode street, Magodo, Lagos.
In a graphic detail, Evans
described how he was tortured by police officers after his arrest.
“Insp. Haruna (member of IG’s
Intelligence Response Team) took me to Abuja and brought me back to Lagos,
where I was at the I-G’s Guest House at Obalende, Lagos,” he said.
“Sunny, the 2 I/C (second in
command) to Abba Kyari, Head of the IRT, Mr Christian Ugu, Mr Phillip and other
police officers working with them were there.
“Haruna brought about 25 sheets
of paper and asked me to sign; that day, my mind told me not to sign because it
might be my death warrant. Phillip put his hand in his pocket and brought out a
brown hospital card; showed it to me and told me to sign it, saying that ‘do
you think that we are joking here?’ he said if anything happens to me here,
this card covers everything.
“Phillip said the police will not
be held responsible, and before I knew, Ugu slapped me and that was how they
started beating me.”
The alleged kidnap kingpin gave
more details to the court on how the police officers tortured him and made him
witness executions in a bid to get him to admit to his crimes.
He said: “Mr Ugu was smoking, he
quenched the cigarette on my hand. My lord, look at my head where they beat me;
My Lord, look at my hand.
“They took me to the backyard of
the I-G’s guest house; I sustained injuries on my head and body, and Phillip
asked the policemen to walk on me and when I started bleeding, he said you
think we are joking here.
“At the backyard, I saw some
people that I was paraded with; they were wearing leg chains. Some of them had
bullet wounds on their legs and Phillip ordered Haruna to bring a big brown
cellotape, handkerchief and poly bags.
“Haruna forced a handkerchief
into the mouth of one of them; he used the cellotape to tightly tape his mouth
and face and put a poly bag over his head and cellotaped it, and used another
poly bag and cellotaped it for the second time, and they left the man on the
ground.
“The man on the ground was
shaking; he pissed (urinated) on his body, he poo-pooed (defecated) on his body
and, after a while, he went quiet. Haruna went to the man and stepped on his
body and he was unresponsive and he told me can you see I have travelled him.”
Evans told the court that four
more persons were executed in the same manner by the police officers in his
presence.
“I was brought before them, and I
started begging, asking them what do they want me to do, and they told me to cooperate
with them, and I said okay that I will do anything they wanted me to do.
“Phillip asked them to take me to
the house, and he asked if I knew the method of killing and I said no; they
said that it is called ‘Saddam Hussein’.
“He said that there is no way an
autopsy can predict the cause of death of the five people they had just killed,
and that those people have travelled.”
Evans said after witnessing the
execution, the 25 sheets of paper were brought for him to sign by the police.
He noted he was trembling with
fear and Sunny, the second in command to Abba Kyari, head of the IGP IRT, asked
Haruna to offer him a can of cold Fanta.
“When the Fanta was given to me,
I drank it and after a few minutes, they brought the 25 sheets of paper for me
and I signed them,” he said.
“Some things were written on some
of the sheets of paper while some were blank; that was how I was forced to sign
the confessional statements.”
On cross-examination by Titilayo
Shitta-Bey, Lagos state director of public prosecution (DPP), Evans confirmed
his name and the names of his parents, and denied knowing the officers before
his arrest.
“I am 38-year-old, I was born on
April 29, 1980; my mother’s name is Mrs Chinwe Onwuamadike and my father is Mr
Stephen Onwuamadike,” he said.
“I did not know Insp. Haruna,
Abba Kyari, before my arrest; I’m the one in the video, I was cautioned in the
video, but after the cautionary words, I was forced to sign. The story I told
the court was never an afterthought, SARS killed more than 30 people in my
presence; the killings took place at the I-G’s guest house in Ikoyi.
“On the day I was arrested, I was
arrested in my house and I was taken to Ikeja SARS Station; journalists were
there; they had beaten the hell out of me in my house, I was interviewed by the
journalists on Sunday, a day after I was arrested on Saturday.
“When I was taken to the station,
there was a field; I was in a car while I was waiting for Abba Kyari to come.
Kyari, when he came, told me to beg for forgiveness in my interview with
journalists, and also to inform the world I had cancer which I don’t have. The
police killed one Felix Chinemeri in my presence.”
While being re-examined by
Ajanaku, his lawyer, Evans said he had not spoken to journalists before he made
his alleged confessional statement to the police.
Earlier, during proceedings,
Haruna was cross-examined by Ajanaku; he told the court it took more than an
hour to obtain Evans’ statement.
Haruna denied that Evans changed
his clothes because of blood stains from torture, before the video of Evans
giving his confessional statement was made.
He denied editing the five-minute
and 33-second video of Evans giving his statement to the police.
“I never threatened to kill the
first defendant (Evans), and I never created fear in him by killing people in
his
presence,” Haruna said.
Evans is standing trial alongside
Uche Amadi, Ogechi Uchechukwu, Chilaka Ifeanyi, Okwuchukwu Nwachukwu and Victor
Aduba.
The six were arraigned on August
30, 2017, on two counts of conspiracy and kidnapping of Donatus Dunu, chief
executive officer of Maydon Pharmaceutical Limited, from whose family they
allegedly collected 223,000 Euros (N100 million) as ransom.
Evans and his co-defendants had
pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
Hakeem Oshodi adjourned the case
until November 23 for continuation of defence in the trial-within-trial.
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