The Independent Investigative Panel on allegations of human rights violations by the defunct Special Anti – Robbery Squad (SARS) and other units of the Nigerian Police has ordered the Chief Medical Director of the Gwagwalada Specialist Hospital to make available the entry diary from the mortuary from November 20-22, 2012.
Justice Suleiman Galadima (rtd) the chairman of the panel while ruling on the case brought before the panel on the missing corpse of one Patrick Oche, who was allegedly killed by the police while on his way to Benue state in 2012 also summoned Maxwell Opara to appear before the panel and explain his findings when he accompanied Mercy Patrick the widow of the late Oche on an investigation to the hospital.
Earlier on, Mrs Patrick told the panel that the police allegedly killed her husband in 2012 and directed her to the Abuja Specialist hospital in Gwagwalada for confirmation, only for her to be told that the corpse was not in the mortuary, but the name of the deceased was on the entry list diary of the mortuary.
Mercy, a food vendor, narrated before the panel that her husband, Patrick Oche informed her on the 20th of November 2012, that he was travelling to Benue for burial and later in the day, when she tried several times to find out if he had gotten to his destination, the line was switched off.
Testifying before Justice Suleiman Galadima, Mercy stated that she received a call on the 22nd of November,2021 that her husband has been killed by SARS along Masaka, a suburb between FCT and Nasarawa state on the allegation that he is a “one chance” member and the body has been deposited at the Gwagwalada Specialist Hospital.
Mercy Patrick, following the lead of the panel Counsel, Pwadumdi Okoh, informed the panel that when all efforts to locate and identify the body of her husband proved abortive, she, therefore, took her complaints to ‘Berekete family” a reality radio platform, focused on investigative journalism, to take up the case on her behalf.
She claimed that Ahmad Isa, the founder and Ordinary President of the Berekete family assigned journalists, lawyers and with the assistance of policemen to follow her to the Gwagwalada Specialist Hospital to ascertain the whereabouts of the corpse. On getting to the mortuary, the name Patrick Oche was listed in the entry diary of the mortuary but the body was nowhere to be found.
Further questioning by Barr. Okoh revealed that her husband’s car, a red Toyota Camry with plate number CC300AKD was impounded by the police and has since been taken to the SARS office in Abbatoir, Garki.
On the identity of the lawyers who followed her to the mortuary, she mentioned Barrister Echefule, Barrister Agbolahun and Barrister Maxwell Opara.
However, her prayers before the panel are for the police to release the corpse of her late husband to the family for burial and to also get compensation for the death of her husband, adding that she is finding it difficult to take care of her children.
Core Reporters report that the matter was adjourned to December 2, 2021, for the continuation of the hearing.
