A 70-year-old woman, Mrs Charity Ohalete, yesterday, told the Abia State panel on police brutality, extrajudicial killings and related matters how her son died in police detention in December 2018.
Narrating her ordeal, the 70-year-old woman said her son; Onyekachi Ohalete Ugwuiro was arrested at the railway area of Uzuakoli by policemen from the Uzuakoli police station, Bende council area, but denied access to his family who took food to him.
Ohalete disclosed that a few days later, her son was found dead in the cell when she went to visit him and insisted on seeing him.
She lamented that the Police chased her away from the cell while Onyekachi’s corpse was taken to the mortuary without allowing the family members to see it.
In her words: “When I came to see my son, I was initially told that the person with the key to the cell was absent, but later the key was broken and my son, Onyekachi, was found dead in the cell. They chased me away from the cell and took Onyekachi’s corpse to the mortuary without his family seeing it. The family was made to pay N100, 000 before seeing the corpse.”
In its defence, the Police claimed that an autopsy performed on the corpse, which Mrs Ohalete was not aware of, showed that the deceased committed suicide with a rope from his trouser.
The police also stated that the deceased was arrested for stealing a police property. However, the Police did not produce a petition or arrest warrant to the family.
Vanguard