Notorious Kidnapper, Evans, who is standing trial on amendment charges bordering on conspiracy and kidnapping alongside his accomplices, Uche Amadi, Okwuchukwu Nwachukwu, Chilaka Ifeanyi, Victor Aduba and one female, Ogechi Uchechukwu, has accused police officers of killing over 30 people in his presence.
Testifying at the Lagos State High Court, Evans narrated how the police allegedly killed five detainees in his presence at a place he called “Inspector General Guest House” in Lagos. According to him, he was forced to witness the executions to make him to admit to criminal allegations against him.
It was gathered that before Evans’s testimony, a five-minute, 33-second video recording was played in the courtroom. The video recording showed Idowu Haruna, a member of the Inspector General of Police IGP,’s intelligence response team, sitting beside Evans cautioning him and taking his statement.
However, Olanrewaju Ajanaku, Evans’s lawyer, queried the validity of the recording, saying the video was doctored. Giving his testimony, Evans said;
“Insp. Haruna (member of IG’s Intelligence Response Team) took me to Abuja and brought me back to Lagos, where I was at the I-G’s Guest House at Obalende, Lagos.
“Sunny, the 2 I/C (second in command) to Abba Kyari, Head of the IRT, Mr Christian Ugu, Mr Phillip and other police officers working with them were there.
“Haruna brought about 25 sheets of paper and asked me to sign; that day, my mind told me not to sign because it might be my death warrant. Phillip put his hand in his pocket and brought out a brown hospital card; showed it to me and told me to sign it, saying that ‘do you think that we are joking here?’ he said if anything happens to me here, this card covers everything.
“Phillip said the police will not be held responsible, and before I knew, Ugu slapped me and that was how they started beating me.”
“Mr Ugu was smoking, he quenched the cigarette on my hand. My lord, look at my head where they beat me; My Lord, look at my hand.
“They took me to the backyard of the I-G’s guest house; I sustained injuries on my head and body, and Phillip asked the policemen to walk on me and when I started bleeding, he said you think we are joking here.
“At the backyard, I saw some people that I was paraded with; they were wearing leg chains. Some of them had bullet wounds on their legs and Phillip ordered Haruna to bring a big brown cellotape, handkerchief and poly bags.
“Haruna forced a handkerchief into the mouth of one of them; he used the cellotape to tightly tape his mouth and face and put a poly bag over his head and cellotaped it, and used another poly bag and cellotaped it for the second time, and they left the man on the ground.
“The man on the ground was shaking; he pissed (urinated) on his body, he poo-pooed (defecated) on his body and, after a while, he went quiet. Haruna went to the man and stepped on his body and he was unresponsive and he told me can you see I have travelled him.”
Evans further disclosed that four more persons were executed in the same manner by the police officers, in his presence.
“I was brought before them, and I started begging, asking them what do they want me to do, and they told me to cooperate with them, and I said okay that I will do anything they wanted me to do.
“Phillip asked them to take me to the house, and he asked if I knew the method of killing and I said no; they said that it is called ‘Saddam Hussein’.
“He said that there is no way an autopsy can predict the cause of death of the five people they had just killed, and that those people have travelled.”
Evans said after witnessing the execution, the 25 sheets of paper were brought for him to sign by the police. He noted he was trembling with fear and Sunny, the second in command to Abba Kyari, head of the IGP IRT, asked Haruna to offer him a can of cold Fanta.
“When the Fanta was given to me, I drank it and after a few minutes, they brought the 25 sheets of paper for me and I signed them,” he said.
“Some things were written on some of the sheets of paper while some were blank; that was how I was forced to sign the confessional statements.”
After listening to the submission of Evans, the trial judge, Hakeem Oshodi adjourned the case until November 23 for continuation of defence in the trial-within-trial.