Extra-judicial killing: Dismissed police officer in Edo to die by hanging

By Ozioruva Aliu – Benin City

A Criminal High Court of Justice sitting in Benin City, has sentenced to death by hanging, a dismissed Police Constable, Joseph Omotosho, attached to the defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS, Edo State Police command. This sentence is coming after five and a half years of waiting for justice by the family of Benson Obodeh, a car dealer, who was arrested by men of SARS for undisclosed reasons and later died in unclear circumstances.

The dismissed Constable, Joseph Omotosho, alongside, Corporals, Adeleke Adedeji, Abena John, Oniyo Musa, Henry Shobowole, were found guilty after undergoing a court trial on eight-count charge bordering on Conspiracy to Steal and murder over alleged car theft incident that happened in 2015. But the other three accomplices escaped during the EndSARS protest when two correctional centres were destroyed in Benin City and inmates escaped. The presiding judge, Justice Ohimai Ovbiagele, delivered judgment on the fifth defendant, Joseph Omotosho, who was the only one present in Court while suspending the sentencing of the other absconded criminal policemen.

Ovbiagele described testimonies provided by the claimant as firm adding, “therefore, his judgment was based on “absolute fact” which the Court absorbed as presented by the prosecuting counsel and all witnesses that appeared before the court,” 26-year-old Benin based car dealer, Benson Obodeh, was said to have been listed among suspected criminal gangs who allegedly stole a Peugeot car in Lagos for their raids. According to multiple reports, his corpse was later dumped at the Specialist Hospital, Benin City, with a different name unscripted on his lifeless body, claimed by the mortician who received the body from one of the Police Corporals that killed him. Family investigations revealed that, the policemen who committed the murder also stole an unregistered Peugeot 306 car from the late Benson Obodeh, stole the sum of N200,000 cash from him, made away with the wallet containing his identity cards and two ATM Cards.