Police lose N2m to kidnap suspect's brother-in-law

A Federal High Court in Lagos has ruled against the unlawful detention of Okwuchukwu Obiechina, the brother-in-law of notorious billionaire kidnapper, Chukwudumeme Onwuamadike, popularly known as Evans, and asked the police to pay him the sum of N2 million as a result.

Obiechina filed a fundamental rights enforcement suit before Justice Mohammed Idris, complaining about how the police unlawfully kept him in custody while they were conducting investigations into Evans' crimes.

In his ruling on Monday, October 23, 2017, Justice Idris declared Obiechina's arrest and detention by the police to be unlawful and ordered the police to either release him unconditionally or promptly charge him to court if he has any case to answer.

He ruled the remand order the police claimed to have obtained from a magistrate's court as invalid and asked them to publish a public apology to Obiechina in two national daily newspapers, and pay him N2 million in damages.

Obiechina was arrested by two police officers on June 26 and has been held in a detention cell since then without any official criminal charges filed against him.

As a result, Obiechina and his wife, Nzube, filed a lawsuit against the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, the Nigeria Police, and the Special Anti-Robbery Squad in the state.While Justice Idris was ruling on the case, Evans appeared before Justice Oloruntoyin Taiwo of the Igbosere division of the Lagos High Court early on Monday on fresh charges of conspiracy and attempted kidnap.

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The fresh charges are separate from the ones already filed against him before the Ikeja division of the court, where he pleaded 'not guilty' to two-count charges of conspiracy and kidnapping before Justice Hakeem Oshodi last week.

Evans was arrested by a combined team of the Intelligence Response Team (IRT) and the Anti-Kidnap Unit of the Lagos State Police Command at one of his Magodo Phase II GRA, Lagos, home on Saturday, June 10, 2017.

His arrest was followed by revelations of how he successfully carried out kidnappings and made millions of dollars from his victims, eluding the police during his decade-long reign of terror.