From Okey Sampson, Umuahia
The Chairman of the Abia State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Police Brutality, retired Justice Sunday Imo, has ordered the police to immediately release of the corpse of late Mr Chinaka Ahamefula to his family for burial.
Justice Imo also ordered the police to fully off-set the mortuary bill of the deceased from the time his corpse was deposited at the morgue to the time it will be taken for burial.
The panel’s order followed the submission of a petitioner, Miss Obianuju Chinaka, a student, who resides in Owerri, Imo State.
Miss Chinaka had told the panel how some policemen shot and killed his father, Mr Chinaka Ahamefula, 50, a trader, in cold blood and refused to release his remains since October 21, 2020.
She said her father left home for Aba on October 17, 2020, to visit his friend, Mr Ikoro Agama, who was organising a wake keeping festivity for his late mother.
According to the petitioner, Ikoro Agama, with Ikoro Iheanyi and his father on October 21, 2020, went to the market to buy food items and eventually retired at a palm wine drinking bar to cool off.
Miss Chinaka said that after a while, her father’s friends left him there and went home to prepare the meal.
‘Immediately his friends left the scene, there were gunshots all around Cameroon, School Roads and the environs, and as my father was walking back to his friend’s house he was shot on his right leg and right eye by one of the policemen from Cameroon Station. He died instantly,’ she told the panel.
‘Policemen came with their Hilux van and took the corpse of my slain father and deposited it at St Anthony’s Hospital Mortuary, Aba.’
Miss Chinaka sought for a N100 million compensation as well as for the panel to prevail on the police to release the remains of his slain father for burial.
She alleged that DSP Kelis Nwakozor was the police officer keeping the mortuary tally of her dead father.
The chairman of the panel granted the petitioner’s second request of ordering police to release her father’s corpse for burial and adjourned the matter to January 27 for cross-examination and further hearing.