By Edith Nwapi
The Presidential Investigation Panel on the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) Reforms, sitting in Abuja, on Monday ordered SP Philip Oshiri to appear before it with a suspect.
Oshiri, an officer in charge of Intelligence Response Team, Lagos SARS, was the Investigating Police Officer (IPO) in a case involving one Biodun Olaroye.
Mr Tony Ojukwu, Executive Secretary, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), who doubles as the Chairman of the Panel, gave the order during a public hearing on some petitions against SARS.
Ojukwu gave the order after a petitioner, Mr Olatunde Olaroye, had told the panel that following the arrest of Biodun, his brother, by the SARS, the family had not been able to establish contact with him.
The chairman said all efforts to get Oshiri to appear before the panel proved abortive, hence the order.
Ojukwu said that apart from the IPO’s appearance before the panel, Biodun should also be produced with his case file on Jan. 25.
Olatunde had written to the panel requesting them to look into the alleged unlawful arrest, detention and disappearance of his younger brother, Biodun, who was in the custody of the police.
He alleged in the petition that his brother, then 37, was arrested at Ikorodu, Lagos, between May 11 and May 13, 2017.
He said the family later traced him to the police Headquarters, Ikeja, and Oshiri, who was in charge of the case, did not allow them to see him.
The petitioner alleged that the police boasted that they had the legal right to detain and investigate his brother for three months, two weeks before he could engage legal services to defend Biodun.
Olatunde added that they (Olaroye family) mounted pressure on the police to tell them who the IPO for Biodun was, but that they were warned and threatened to stay clear of the police station.
He said that his brother was held for about four months after which he was paraded, alongside others, before the Inspector General of Police as criminals in custody.
The petitioner claimed that after his brother was moved from Lagos SARS to Abuja and refused to disclose his whereabouts.
Olatunde said that 18 months after their brother’s arrest, no member of the family knows his whereabouts or where he is being kept.
The Federal Government had in August 2018, set up the panel to look into public complaints of human rights abuses by the squad and to recommend a way forward. With reports by (NAN)
