Posted by By Sebastine Ebhuomhan, Reporter, Lagos on
London Metropolitan Police have allegedly killed a Nigerian, Frank Ogboru, who was holidaying in London, United Kingdom.
London Metropolitan Police have allegedly killed a Nigerian, Frank Ogboru, who was holidaying in London, United Kingdom.
A counsel with Allens Agbaka Chambers, a firm of legal practitioners and representatives of the deceased, Edith Edeilogu Aideloje, alleged in a petition to President Olusegun Obasanjo, dated Wednesday, October 4, and titled: "Barbaric and unlawful killing of Mr Frank Ogboru by London Metropolitan Police" that the circumstances under which the Nigerian was murdered were "disgraceful". The counsel, therefore, called for an investigation not only to determine the true cause of the death, but also compensate their client.
The National Assembly, the Minister of External Affairs, the Attorney General of the Federation, the Inspector-General of Police, Delta State governor and the British High Commission in Nigeria were also copied.
The 13-paragraph petition explained that Ogboru, a family man, businessman and breadwinner of his family, travelled to London on September 2 for a vacation expected to ease off his business stress. Ogboru, whose nature of business or employment was not stated, according to the counsel, was staying in a hotel in London until a friend, Prince Bola, extended an invitation to stay in his personal apartment in London so as to alleviate his (Ogboru's) huge hotel bills .
"That invitation turned out to be a fatal one as events that led to his alleged murder began in the friend's apartment when the he (Prince Bola) was away for a business trip to Holland", Aideloje explained.
The counsel added: "To our client's utmost shock and astonishment, on Tuesday, September 26, 2006, a Jamaican lady visited the said apartment claiming that her boyfriend asked her to come and wait for him at Prince Bola's apartment where Ogboru was staying.
"Our client did not accept this story because his friend is happily married and had never mentioned the name of the person whom the Jamaican lady claimed to be looking for.
"The Jamaican lady later ordered our client out of the house and threatened to call the police should our client refuse to obey her orders but surprisingly when our client was in the process of obeying her order, she called the London Metropolitan Police. In the process of our client getting out of the apartment pursuant to the order of the Jamaican lady, seven hefty London Metropolitan policemen swooped on him without any provocation or even affording him the opportunity of explaining himself, wrestled him down, while he was faced flat on the floor, they pinned his hands behind his back.
"Our client was kept face down without allowing any vent or air passage, in other words our client was strangled to death by the Metropolitan Police officers."
The counsel also accused the London Metropolitan Police of dumping the remains of Ogboru in a London mortuary as an unknown or unidentified corpse and further alleged that the authorities thereafter lied that Ogboru died of heart failure.
The counsel stated that although a cousin of the late Nigerian, who is a resident of London, had successfully insisted on an autopsy to be carried out on the corpse, the deceased's wife and family members had not had access to his corpse since it was deposited in a mortuary.
"From the forgoing facts, it is conspicuously glaring that the circumstance under which our client's life was snuffed out by seven London policemen is to say the least, most barbaric and disgraceful. It is pertinent to note that no person is above the law and that what is in issue in this case is the life of a Nigerian citizen who was sadistically and brutally murdered," Aideloje concluded.