Patience Samuel Imaikpo and Rosemary Osahenrumwen Amadin, whose husbands were allegedly killed by men of the defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), on Monday asked the judicial panel of inquiry to compensate them with N50 million and N25 million respectively.
The women made the demand at the sitting of the Edo State Judicial Panel of Inquiry for victims of police brutality and other related abuses.
The duo, who appeared before Justice Ada Ehigiamusoe (rtd)- led panel told members that their husbands were killed by men of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad alongside three of their labourers in 2013 at Ute village and at Ologbo in 2019, both in Ikpoba Okha Local Government Area.
Narrating her ordeal, Patience Imaikpo said her late husband had before the incident had an altercation with SARS while on his way to his farm in Ute village along with his three labourers of Hausa extraction when the police shot and killed them in the pool of their blood.
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She explained that after killing her husband and his labourers, the police officers hurriedly took their corpses away for burial.
According to her, “the police loaded the dead bodies of my husband and his three labourers into their van while an officer drove my husband’s vehicle along with them to the station.
“The police loaded the dead bodies of my husband and his three labourers into their van while an officer drove my husband’s vehicle along with them to the station.
“When I got the news of my husband’s death, I hurriedly rushed to the scene of the incident, hired a car and I traced them to their station which happened to be the Edo State Police Command Headquarters in GRA, Benin City.
“When I got to the police station, I identified myself as the wife of Mr Samuel Imaikop Brownson.
“I was severely beaten up, accused of being a wife of the leader of an armed robbery gang and I was detained for four nights without food and water and even without them taking my statement.
“I was released five days later after the intervention of my lawyer.
“To cover their evil deeds, the police hurriedly buried my husband and the labourers which he hired from 2+2 junction, a popular spot around the Aduwawa-Eyaen axis of the Benin-Auchi Express road”, she said.
She further explained, that the family, however, mounted pressure on the police to exhume the body of her husband for an autopsy and that the result from the autopsy revealed that he died from bullet wounds.
“That upon the order of His Lordship F.E.N Igbinosa in suit No. MOR/1/MISC/03/2013, filed by B. A. Iluobe, Esq, the Police vide a letter with reference number AR3000/EDS/X/LEG./VOL.III/47 invited and took me and my lawyer and a Pathologist to the burial site.
“The body was exhumed and although decomposed I was able to recognise my late husband because of the clothes he wore before he left the house that day.
“The Pathologist and the court both arrived at a well-considered conclusion that my husband died of gun shot wounds fired by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the Edo State Police Command”, she added.
On her part, Rosemary Osahenrumwen Amadin, who approached the panel through her counsel asked for N25million as compensation from the panel over the death of her husband, Amadin Odewingie.
She told the panel that her husband, a truck driver, was allegedly chased to death by Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the Edo State Police Command at Ologbo in 2019.
She said, in order to avoid being shot by the police, he decided to jump into the Ologbo river and when he requested for help, the police allegedly threatened to kill anyone who volunteered to help him.
Amadin said the police allegedly watched her husband drowned in the river.
Chairman of the panel, Justice Ada Ehigiamusoe (rtd) however adjourned in order for the police to also state their own side of the story.
