Police commissioner sues Edo #ENDSARS panel for reopening murder case

A retired police commissioner Caroline Afegbua has sued the panel investigating police brutality in Edo state after it dismissed her objection to a petition filed by the family of late Ibrahim Momodu, alleged to have been by police last year.

Afegbua contends the Endsars and Allied Matters  Judicial Panel of Enquiries in Edo state  did not give her a fair hearing and wants the Federal High Court in Benin City to restrain the panel to stop work on the Momodu family’s petition until the appeal is determined.

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The Momodu family allege Momodu was killed on May 27, 2013 by Corporal Amadin Idahosa on the orders of Afegbai, the the divisional police officer (DPO) at Ogida Police Station, on armed robbery charge and was subsequently buried in a shallow grave in a cemetery in a desperate attempt to cover up the deed.

Her counsel said, “The ruling delivered by the Judicial Panel of Enquiry on the 18, November 2020 dismissing her preliminary objection to the hearing of the petition filed by the family of late Ibrahim Momodu,  needs to be challenged timeously to preserve the ‘ status quo ante’”.

In a four paragraph affidavit, she said the State Judicial Panel of Enquiry has no power or legal competence under the constitution or any enabling law to revisit, reopen or review a matter which the Police at the highest level at Abuja carried  out  and thoroughly  investigated.

“The office of the Director of Public Prisecution (DPP), Edo State, wrote a legal advice which led to the prosecution and conviction of Mr. Amadin Idahosa and that she was never indicted.

“Hearing of the petition is, “antithetical and at variance with the sacred doctrine of  sunjudice” and capable of compromising the final outcome of the case at the Supreme Court, which is detrimental to the normative course of the administration of criminal justice,” she said.

She however held that Mr. Amadin Idahosa who was convicted of manslaughter for the death of late Ibrahim Momodu is challenging his conviction and sentence at the Supreme Court.