Delta State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Police Brutality and Extra-Judicial Killings has received evidence on the murder of former governorship candidate of Citizens Popular Party (CPP) in the state, Chief Ogbe Onokpite.
An affidavit stating the facts of police brutality and extra-judicial killing of Onokpite, signed by Ben Okpo Onokpite and presented by their counsel, Odiana Eriata, urged the panel to call on the government of Delta to direct the office of the Attorney General to ask the Director of Public Prosecution to prosecute the indicted police officers as investigated by the police and also compensate the late Onokpite family.
Odiana Eriata, in a chat with journalists after the panel closed the case awaiting recommendations, said he was happy that eventually they were heard as the case had been lingering since 2011.
“But today the panel received all relevant documents that will assist it in reaching decision one way or the other”, Eriata said. “And one of those very germane documents is the report on the investigation conducted by the police indicting over five policemen, one of whom is now a commissioner of police who was an Area Commander in Warri at that time.
“He supervised the murder of Onokpite. The document was admitted without any form of objection from the police. We also have gory pictures of the murder of Onokpite. “The people who killed Onokpite did not stop there; they planted the pictures on the internet. He was dehumanized, his corpse was also degraded”.
Eriata pointed out that they can now heave sigh of relief after the admission of evidence by the panel of inquiry; even though he did not know what their recommendation would be like, he expressed confidence that at the end, the late Onokpite will smile wherever he is, not only for compensation but also that the whole world knows that he was illegally, unconstitutionally, extra-judicially murdered by the police.
His elder brother, Mr. Victor Onokpite, on his part, expressed satisfaction that they will get the justice they had long been yearning for.
Vanguard