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A U.N. human rights investigator, in Nigeria to look into prison conditions and deaths in custody, issued a preliminary report Friday on what he called failures in the police system.
ABUJA, Nigeria (AP)--A U.N. human rights investigator, in Nigeria to look into prison conditions and deaths in custody, issued a preliminary report Friday on what he called failures in the police system.
After a two-week investigation, Philip Alston, special rapporteur of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, referred in his report to "disproportionate use of force" by police who killed people they alleged were robbers.
Citing a case of six alleged armed robbers killed by police in the southeast city of Enugu in May, Alston described the police claim that the suspects were attempting to escape from detention as "utterly lacking in plausibility."
"But even if it were true, it would represent an entirely disproportionate use of force to subdue individuals who were unarmed," he said.
Alston was mandated by the U.N Commission to look into issues including alleged deaths in custody due to torture, neglect, or the life-threatening conditions of detention and allegations of unjustified killings by the security forces.
"Almost all of the ingredients, from the killings of alleged robbers, to the fraudulent placement of weapons, to the failure to undertake proper post-mortem procedures ... have been repeated many times over in relation to cases brought to my attention," Alston's report said.
The U.N. official also expressed concern about the mental and physical health of the 530 people on death row in Nigeria, who face an average wait of 20 years before execution. Among them is a man convicted of sodomy, whom an Islamic court in the mainly Muslim north sentenced to death by stoning.
Nigerian officials couldn't be reached for comment.
Alston commended the Nigerian administration for its full cooperation and its renewed efforts to tackle widespread corruption, usually closely tied, he said, to the abuse of power.
Alston said Nigeria will have four weeks to make objections and observations to be taken into account before a final document is put together.