The Leadership Newspapers photojournalist, Mr Benedict Uwalaka, who was allegedly battered by a Director of TOS Funeral Homes (undertakers), Bayo Ogunsola, and his accomplice, yesterday, gave a vivid account of how he was brutalised while covering the release of corpses of victims of the Dana Airline crash, last year.
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The photojournalist, whogave the account in an emotion laden voice was led in his Examination-in- Chief by the Police Prosecutor, Inspector Benson Emuerhi.
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He said: "On August 9, 2012, I went to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), for the release of the corpses of the ill-fated Dana Airline crash.
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"I saw a lot of reporters and photojournalists from different media houses both from within and outside Nigeria.
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"We were there for many hours when some one shouted that they had started to release the bodies.
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"We all rushed to the scene and discovered that they used two vehicles to block the ambulance that carried the dead bodies."
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He explained further that he started looking for an angle where he could get a good shot since he could not go back to the office without shot of what happened at the scene.
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He said: "From a distance of about 30 metres, I took pictures of the ambulance twice. The next thing I heard was: 'What did you snap? Show me your camera. Give me your camera.'
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"I held onto my camera but this man in black shirt, who I later identified as Ogunsola came and dragged my camera.
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"He started giving me blows. While he was beating me I still held onto my camera. Someone wearing a white shirt came from behind, pulled my leg, hit my head with something and so collected the camera.
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"I was soaked in blood as a result of the beating. It was later when I watched the television account that I saw that he hit me with a bottle."
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In his statement at the Police station, he told the court that he wrote the man in black shirt and white shirt since he didn't know their names.
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"I was later told by my colleagues that the man in black shirt was Ogunsola, who had been arrested by the Police and the one in white shirt was Idowu.
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"I was treated at LASUTH and asked to stay for 24 hours for medical observation."
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When asked for the evidence of his injury by the prosecutor, Uwalaka burst into tears.
That crash is one Nigerians won't forget in a very long time. It is such a shame it happened here in Nigeria. It's sad to know