A school proprietor, Mr Emma Adimachukwu, on Tuesday told the Anambra State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Police Brutality, Extral Judicial Killings and other Related Matters that the disbanded Special-Anti Robbery Squad charged him N400,000 to feed his son in their custody.
Adimachukwu, an indigene of Oraifite in the Ekwusigo Local Government Area, but resident in Asaba, Delta State, said his son Obinna Sandy, a businessman, was killed in 2014.
He said, “My son graduated from the Nnamdi Azikiwe University; because he read business administration, I opened a shop for him at Mount Olive shopping plaza, Onitsha.
“He travelled to India to buy clothes. On March 14, 2014, he went to Nnewi and collected $10,000 owed him by a friend and proceeded to Onitsha to take delivery of his goods that just arrived.
“It was while waiting for the goods that some SARS men arrived and started shooting. They arrested him and his friend. They searched him and saw $10,000 on him and concluded he was an armed robber.
“My son refused to let them take the money, he fought them. So, when they got to Awkuzu SARS, they killed him.
“When I went to see him after his friend who was smuggled out told me of it, James Nwafor (SARS boss) told his men to lock me up that I was a father to an armed robber. Some prominent people intervened and they released me. They later told me to drop money so they can be feeding my son, and they collected N400,000 from me, knowing full well that they had killed my son,” Adimachukwu said.
Another petitioner, Austin Akabuike told the panel that SARS killed his younger brother, Mr Ekene Akabuike, a final-year student of Statistics of Nnamdi Azikiwe University in 2004.
Akabuike said the killing of his younger brother caused the death of his mother.
He said, “On June 3rd, 2004, they picked my brother in his room and we were told they would arraign him the next day, but they killed him and told us that he had been wasted.
He told the panel he was seeking for N100m compensation over the loss.
The matter was adjourned for further hearing to Tuesday next week.
Punch