Maduako Igbokwe l Tuesday, November 24, 2020
ONITSHA, Anambra, Nigeria – Mrs. Christiana Ngozi Nnatuanya, widow of late Linus Nnatuanya who died in the custody of disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squard (SARS), Awkuzu cell in 2007 has demanded for N50 million compensation.
According to her, the Money would enable her to cater for the seven children her husband left behind before his death. She also demand for the release of her husband’s corpse for proper burial, according to custom and tradition of his community.
She said her husband’s community believes that a man who died in SARS cell died wrongfully and if not buried. Mrs. Nnatuanya who was led in evidence by her counsel Ekene Okonkwo before Anambra State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Police Brutality, extra-judicial killings and other related matters sitting in Awka said her husband Linus went to market in January 31,2007 but never returned.
She told the panel that her husband was arrested on his way home from the market by SARS and was accused of being a member of Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) .
He was taken to SARS office Awkuzu and was killed by men of SARS.
“On 31 January 2007, my husband went to market but did not return. I waited all night and when I called his phone it was switched off. On the 6th of January, some one visited me to tell me that SARS officers arrested some people and asked if I had visited SARS office at Awkuzu.
“When I went to SARS Awkuzu station, I saw my husband in cell 4 sweating profusely. SARS officers asked me to bring N400, 000.00 which I didn’t have. The next day, I went back to their office with N40 000.00 which I could find but I was told that my husband has been transferred to Abuja” she narrated.
Mrs. Nnatuanya also narrated that it was after some days that a young man Ugochukwu Eze who was released from the same cell informed her that the night before her second visits, her husband shouted several times on top of his voice, collapsed and died.
Asked by counsel to the police Obi Innocent, a Superintendent of Police, whether she would blame her husband’s death on police, Mrs. Nnatuanya responded: “if police did not arrest my husband, he couldn’t have died”. The case has been adjourned by the presiding judge retired justice Veronica Ume till next Tuesday 1st December 2020.
