Suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari, has stated that his life is under threat of attack by inmates who he had arrested when he was in office.
He stated this in court while asking Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court Abuja to grant him bail.
At the resumed hearing of his drug-trafficking case today, Thursday, May 26, his counsel, Onyechi Ikpeazu, said an application seeking bail for the 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th defendants had been filed and served to the National Drug Law and Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).
According to Ikpeazu, the bail application was necessary following a threat to the lives of his clients in the Kuje Correctional Centre. Ikpeazu said his clients were in danger because of the nature of the work the defendants had done in the course of policing the country and now being remanded with criminals in the correctional center, who through them, their arrests were made possible.
Recall that some inmates of the Kuje Correctional center had attacked Kyari.
At the court hearing today, Kyari’s lawyer appealed to the court to grant the defendants bail as their lives are currently in danger.
The four suspended police officers namely ACP Ubia, ASP Bawa James, Insp Simon Agirigba and Insp. John Nuhu, listed as 2nd to 5th defendant respectively are being charged by the NDLEA for an alleged drug offence alongside Kyari. While Ubia, Agirigba and Nuhu sought bail over an attempted murder, Bawa did not apply for bail.
However, the counsel for the prosecution (NDLEA), Sunday Joseph, opposed the request that the bail plea should be taken.
Kyari had on May 10 complained about not being safe in detention with members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and Eastern Security Network (ESN), who he described as criminals. Kyari at the time disclosed this through his lawyer, Nureini Jimoh, while asking the Federal High Court in Abuja to review his bail application initially rejected.
He insisted that the matter was scheduled for review of the facts of the 6th and 7th defendants who pleaded guilty to the counts preferred against them
According to the documents which contained details of the suspended police officer’s argument, he said his life is at risk for sharing the same correctional facility with criminals that he put in jail, including IPOB/ESN members and terrorists.
A part of the document stated, “At the centre, the applicants who were head and deputy head of the Intelligence Response Team of the Nigeria Police Force met stiff resistance, attack and open threats to the lives of the applicants by series head (sic) of criminal gang that they had busted.”
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