Lawyer narrates how policeman was branded armed robber, died at Denton police station

A lawyer and petitioner before the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC)’s independent investigative panel on violations by the defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) and other police units on Friday narrated before the panel how three police officers at Denton Police Division, Lagos State, allegedly detained their colleague unlawfully, leading to his eventual death in 2019.

The lawyer, Daniel Dashe, who said he was handling the matter pro bono as the deceased family could not afford the services of a lawyer, told the panel that it was only the police that could fish out the DPO Denton Police Division, Lagos, the officer in charge of the defunct SARS Lagos State and his second in command in order to provide the necessary information leading to the death of a policeman to the panel.

According to him, the late policeman, Maxwell Dul Kate died under mysterious circumstances under their jurisdiction.

Dashe stated that from his personal investigation, he gathered that the late Dul Kate was wrongly accused of being an armed robber, leading to his arrest by a mob and taken to Denton station from where he was transferred to the SARS office.

According to him, the deceased closed from work on a particular date and that on his way home had an altercation with a motorcyclist who in the course of the altercation shouted to the people and called the policeman an armed robber.

Dashe said the word armed robber that attracted crowds to the scene, adding that the people then insisted that Dul Kate should be taken to a nearby police station for proper identification despite identifying himself as a policeman.

He added that “On getting to Denton police station, Maxwell was surprisingly detained by his colleagues despite his identity card that was handy for them to ascertain if he was actually a police personnel or not.”

He further told the panel that when Dul Kate’s arrest and detention of got to his colleagues at Railway police station, Yaba, where he was serving before his ordeal, some of them went to Denton police station came to bail him but officers at the station refused to grant him bail and later forwarded the matter as an armed robbery case to SARS.

The petitioner alleged that the deceased colleagues who went to the SARS office to secure his bail were asked to pay N100,000 for bail, which they declined.

He added the whole process coincided with the weekend of the 2019 presidential election, which was on a Saturday, adding that by the following Wednesday, the deceased had died.

Dashe alleged that the police have refused to officially disclose the death of the officer to his family members and that the Nigeria Police did not carry out any inquiry into the death of Dul Kate.

He further alleged that the remains of a deceased policeman was deposited at the Mainland Hospital mortuary and subsequently buried in a mass grave.

The petitioner, therefore, on behalf of the deceased family, prayed the panel to order the police to pay N100 million compensation to the family and a public apology from the police.

He further pleaded with the panel to order that the affected police officers be prosecuted in accordance with the law.

While being cross-examined by counsel for the police, Kenneth Ogbuchua, Dashe insisted that the late Dul Kate was a serving policeman before he was allegedly killed in police custody.

He added that he was able to confirm this from the deceased family members.

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