Mrs. Christiana Ngozi Nnatuanya, widow of late Linus Nnatuanya, who died in the custody of the disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squard (SARS), Awkuzu cell in 2007, has demanded for 50 million naira compensation.
According to her, the Money would enable her cater for the seven children her husband left behind.
She also demanded for the release of her husband’s corpse for proper burial, according to custom and tradition of their community.
Mrs Nnatuanya told the panel that her husband’s community believes that a man who died in SARS cell died wrongfully and if not properly buried, would create problems in future.
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 on January 31, 2007 but never returned.
She told the panel that her husband was arrested on his way home from the market by SARS men and was accused of being a member of Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) .
She alleged that he was taken to SARS office, Awkuzu, and was killed by men of SARS.
Narrating her ordeal, Mrs Nnatuanya said on 31 January 2007, her husband went to market but did not return.
She said she waited all night and when she called his phone it was switched off.
She said n the 6th of January, some one visited her to tell her that SARS officers arrested some people and asked if she had visited SARS office at Awkuzu.
Continuing, Mrs Nnatuanya said that when she went to SARS Awkuzu station, she saw her husband in cell 4, sweating profusely, then SARS officers asked her to bring 400, 000.00 naira which she did not have.
According to her, the next day, she went back to their office with 40 000.00 naira which she could raise, but was told that her husband has been transferred to Abuja.
Mrs. Nnatuanya also narrated that it was after some days that a young man, who was released from the same cell informed her that the night before her second visit, 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 that if police did not arrest her husband, he would not have died.
The case was adjourned by the presiding judge, Retired Justice Veronica Ume, till next Tuesday 1st December 2020.
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