Metro
Man tells panel how SARS operatives killed his three-day-old daughter
Norde Sylvester, a 50-year old man and a civil servant with the Universal Basic Education (UBE), on Wednesday narrated how operatives of the now disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) killed his three-day-old daughter in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
Sylvester, who spoke when he appeared at the hearing of the Rivers State Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Police Brutality, said a bullet from the gun of a SARS operative killed his infant daughter.
On how the incident, which he said took place at his residence in Rumuohalu on October 15, 2015 happened, he said:
“On that day, I was with my family in our house at no. 9 Hon Close, off Omodudoro, few metres away from the SARS office on Nelson Mandela Road.
“There had been shootings by SARS men which continued till we went in to sleep. We woke up in the morning to discover that one of their bullets penetrated the roof and killed my only daughter, a three-day-old baby.
“I picked up the bullet and went to the SARS office. When I got there, I told them that they have killed my daughter.
READ ALSO: Petitioner explains how SARS operatives shot him, demanded N200,000 for his release
“Two of the SARS men ordered me to go back, threatening that if I did not leave, I would join my daughter.”
But during cross-examination, counsel for the Commissioner of Police, Mrs Mercy Nweke, said the petitioner’s claim was faulty. She wondered how such a thing would happen and the petitioner failed to report it at the police station.
Further saying that the bullet was not enough evidence that his daughter was killed by SARS men, Nweke added, “This ammunition (referring to the bullet) has not been used. Something that has not been used cannot kill anybody.”
However, counsel for the commission, S. O. Inko-Tariah, objected and argued that Nweke not being an expert could not say if the bullet was used or not.
But noting that the evidence provided by the petitioner was of public interest, the commission’s chairman, Justice Chukwunenye Uriri (retd.), admitted it as an exhibit and asked Sylvester what he wanted.
Replying Sylvester said, “All I need is justice for my baby that they killed and also my house that was damaged.”
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