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Nigeria charged six policemen today with the murder of six unarmed civilians in what human rights groups said was a rare attempt to deal with complaints of police violence.
Nigeria charged six policemen today with the murder of six unarmed civilians in what human rights groups said was a rare attempt to deal with complaints of police violence.
The officers face the death penalty if convicted. One of them is on the run after escaping from police custody. They are accused of killing six traders in the Apo district of the capital Abuja on June 8.
A police commissioner initially said the six were armed robbers who opened fire first, but witnesses said they were innocent party goers on their way home. Rights groups accuse Nigerian police of killing thousands of people every year on the pretext of crime prevention. The murder charges were brought as Philip Alston, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions made a fact-finding visit to Nigeria.
The Apo killings sparked a violent protest during which residents paraded the six bodies through the streets and set fire to a police station. In response, the police set up a public inquiry into the killings, the first of its kind, according to rights groups.
The main witness was a policeman who said he had found a wounded man by a road in Apo on the morning of the shootings. He said he handed the man over to a police patrol but instead of helping him they shot him dead and tossed his body into a jeep.
The testimony caused a national outcry and the next day President Olusegun Obasanjo ordered a judicial inquiry into the killings. The murder charges were brought before High Court judge Bello Ishaq, who did not take any pleas and adjourned the case until next Wednesday.
Nigerian police have published figures showing they killed 3 100 suspected armed robbers in 2003. - Reuters