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Gyang Bere, Jos
Following the mysterious death of an accused person Mr. Nanpo Sambo in police custody while standing trial for criminal conspiracy and unlawful possession of firearms, the family of the accused has urged Federal High Court, Jos, Plateau State to order the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to produce its son alive.
The accused person was arrested on the 28th February this year by the police Intelligence Response Team (IRT) under the Inspector General of Police and a police officer Abba Kyari in Jos and taken to Kaduna for custody.
Since his arrest, he has not been brought to court despite repeated court orders to produce him but was said to have slumped and died in police custody on July 6, 2019.
The police through its counsel Mr. Joshua Ayanna, had told the presiding judge, Justice Dorcas Agishi of Federal High Court, Jos that Sambo died in detention in their Abuja cell.
In a motion filed on Sept. 11, Ayanna, asked the court to discharge its earlier order of August 3 that compelled the IGP and Kyari to appear before it to explain why the court would not charge them with contempt for failing to produce the Sambo to face trial.
“At first we are not aware of the court earlier order for us to produce the accused before the last order of August 3rd. Based on the information before this court as contained in our motion, the accused is deceased as we are praying this court to discharge IGP and Kyari of its earlier order,” Ayanna said.
However, the family of Sambo through its counsel, Mr. Daniel Dashe, accused the Inspector-General of Police and Mr. Abba Kyari, an officer in charge of the Intelligent Response Team of lying to the court that Sambo died in a police cell in Abuja.
“We don’t believe the story of the police because a family member had sometime toward the end of the same month of July spoken with the alleged accused but dead person through the aid of a personnel, whose name we don’t want to mention here.”
Dashe while opposing the submission of the police counsel said it was a ploy to run away from their disrespect to the court by refusing to appear before the court along with the accused (Sambo).
“We vehemently opposed the affidavit deposed to by the police. This is because the crux of the motion for discharging them (IGP and Kyari) is based on the mere allegation that the accused died on July 6 in their cell in Abuja.
“I submit that on the strength of our exhibits A – C, they (police) can’t claim ignorant of the court’s orders.
Secondly, they are claiming that he (Sambo) is dead. We don’t believe them. An uncle of his spoke with him around July ending, weeks after they (police) claimed he died on July 6.
“If truly he (Sambo) is dead, the family members would have been informed. Why only now are they informing the court? Why did they bury him without the knowledge of the family? We submit that they must obey the court order, and until this court is certified that the accused person is dead, they must obey the court. If he is dead they must produce his corpse to show that he is truly dead,” Dashe argued.
According to him, “they (police) are only economical with the truth and we urge this court to dismiss their application and compel them to do the needful for this case to proceed.”
Justice Agishi, after listening to the arguments of the two parties, adjourned the case to Oct. 29 for ruling on the two motions raised.
