Son accused for Killing Father
A Kano High Court heard yesterday that the son of the murdered SSS officer charged with die murder of his father and four other members of the family was threatened while in the custody of the SSS in Kano to admit committing the crime.
Counsel to Bello Garba Bello, Ahmed Raji, submitted to the court that his client was threatened and made promises in the hands of the SSS operatives after the incident before the police came to obtain his statement.
Raji told the court that Garba, popularly called Baba, had been warned that refusing to admit the offence may lead him to being handed over to the police to be shot in the leg and have his nails removed. The counsel, who said this while raising objection to an application to tender a statement purportedly made by the accused person to the police, argued that the statement was involuntarily made. He said his client was further warned that if he failed to act as instructed, someone else was going to write down the statement and that it would be attributed to him.
A police investigator, PC Mu’azu Ibrahim, earlier told the court that the statement was obtained from the accused person under words of caution two days after the September incident. PC Ibrahim said when they first met Garba at the state SSS office on 13 September, 2010; they suspected his complicity in the crime, even though the accused person blamed it on others. The presiding judge, Justice Abdullahi Muhammad Halliru, has adjourned the case to January 4 and 5, 2011 for commencement of trial within trial on the said statement.
Daily Trust, Friday, December 10, 2010,
Page 7,
From Lawan Danjuma Adamu, Kano
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