At Lagos judicial panel, petitioner identifies police lawyer who slapped him four times

A petitioner, Mr. Okolieagu Abunike, on Tuesday fingered a police counsel, Mr. Joseph Ebosereme as the person that slapped him four times when he went to deliver a court summon to him at the State criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID), Panti, Lagos.

Abunike made the allegation after his cross examination by one of the counsels for the police, Emmanuel Eze, at the sitting of the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Enquiry and Restitution for Victims of SARS related abuses and other matters.

Abunike, who had petitioned the panel over his alleged detention and torture for 47 days without trial in 2012 at the Ikeja office of the Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (FSARS), had sought the panel’s permission to speak.

Abunike, a father of five, on getting permission to speak from panel chair Judge emeritus Doris Okuwobi, pointed at the police lead counsel, Mr. Joseph Ebosereme, and accused him of assault.

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Abunike said: “I am surprised today to see a counsel sitting before this tribunal in my proceedings, Mr. J. Ebosereme.

“Last year he slapped me four times at Panti (State Criminal Investigating and Intelligence Department, (SCIID) when I went to serve him a court process. He said I should slap him back if I had the balls.”

In his response, Ebosereme denied the allegation, claiming that it arose following his refusal to compromise his integrity in the N200m judgment debt recovery case involving a law firm linked with Ebosereme.

“He (Abunike) wants to dent my image…Myself? Slapping you? I don’t sell my integrity for a pot of porridge,” the police officer said.

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