Court Orders SARS to Pay Businessman N5m for Unlawful Arrest, Torture

David-Chyddy Eleke

A High Court in Ogidi, Idemili North Local Government Area of Anambra State has ordered officers of the Special AntiRobbery Squad (SARS) and an officer of the Nigerian Police Force to pay the sum of N5million as compensation to Ugochukwu Oraefo for extortion, illegal arrest, unlawful detention and torture.

Oraefo, an Onitsha-based businessman, was in 2018 arrested at his factory by men of the squad and taken to their office at Awkuzu, where he was unlawfully detained, subjected to excruciating torture and criminally extorted the sum of N6milion as ransom.

The officers had accused Oraefo of working with kidnappers, and having also paid some money to kidnappers, without alerting the police. But the victim rather confessed that he paid ransom to kidnappers who had called and threatened to kidnap him, and also warning him not to disclose it to the police.

The victim, who spoke to journalists upon his release, had said he was kept in detention and tortured for five days, after which a mock execution was carried out on him, with the threat that he would also pay them to secure his freedom.

Though Oraefo, through his lawyer, Justus Ijeoma, was able to get a refund of the N6million he paid to secure his release from the police, Ijeoma, who is also the Executive Director of International Human Rights and Equity Defence Foundation (I-REF), instituted a fundamental right enforcement action against the SARS.