Justice Yetunde Idowu on Thursday decided to await the hearing of two papers, which were filed by the police after the court had on May 8, 2013, heard the applicants’ argument in the contempt suit and adjourned for ruling.
The papers were both dated June 4, 2013, only two days before the ruling was meant to be delivered.
Mr. Seliwei Baidi, counsel for the suspects – Philip Tomi and Joel Wolomo – had urged the court to imprison Manko and the two other defendants, while also expressing apprehension that his clients might have been “murdered” in police cell.
The police, represented by Mr. Friday Igbinosa on Thursday, confirmed Baidi’s fear, declaring that the suspects had died in the course of investigation.
Igbinosa said the suspects had voluntarily confessed to the crime of kidnapping, and were shot by the members of their purported gang when policemen escorted them (the suspects) to their gang’s hideout for further investigation.
The hideout was said to be at Eleko Beach, Ibeju-Lekki area of Lagos, where the gang members allegedly escaped through a speed boat after their unsuccessful bid to “rescue” the suspects from the policemen.
“The gang members on sighting us ambushed and immediately opened fire on their members and the police in a bid to rescue them from the custody of the police before they swiftly jump into a waiting speed boat and escaped through waterways,” Igbinosa said.
The suspects, according to Igbinosa, were subsequently certified dead due to the wounds they allegedly “sustained from the incoming bullets of their colleagues”.
Manko and his two subordinates, who were joined as defendants, in the suit were never represented in court until Thursday.
The two other alleged contemnors are Supol Terry (Officer in Charge, Anti-Robbery Squad Ikeja) and the Investigating Police Officer, Sgt Akinmuyisitan Eric (aka Osa).
Tomi and Wolomo were said to have been arrested on September 13, 2012 at Sinaj Suite Ltd in Akodo, Lekki, Lagos for allegedly kidnapping 46-year-old Alhaji Alaka Abayomi.
The family members of the suspects had instituted a suit seeking the court to order the police to release them after they claimed to have searched prisons and police cells in Lagos without finding them.
The court, subsequently, on February 18, 2013, ordered the defendants to produce the suspects, but the order was not obeyed following which the applicants’ counsel commenced contempt proceedings against the police personnel.
But Igbinosa maintained that the police had not deliberately disobeyed the court order but were away to Maiduguri on a special assignment when the order was given.
Culled from Punch Newspaper
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