Court Orders Police, Bank To Pay N5m Damages For Torture Of Ex-Employee

[Shola Sholaz]

A High court in Oyigbo, Rivers, has ordered the police and Main Street bank to pay N5 million as damages to an ex-employee of the bank.
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Justice Joseph Mbor, who gave the order on Monday in Oyigbo, said the arrest, detention and torture of the applicant, Mr Success Amaefule, was unlawful.
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He described the petition to the police by Mrs Nkiru Nnabuihe, former Eleme branch manager of the bank on which the applicant was arrested as "frivolous''.
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Mbor said that the statement of all the respondents were at variance but "embellished''.
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But the police, the bank branch manager and the bank had argued that the applicant threatened to kidnap the 4th respondent, Nnabuihe, and that he belonged to a secret cult.
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Mbor said that torture should not be an instrument of police investigation and wondered why police detained the applicant for 12 days.
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The Judge said the nearest court to the State Criminal and Investigation Department (SCID) was two kilometers away and decried police actions.
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He said the police did not deny the alleged torture, but said it was the applicant's "personal knowledge''.
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"The police played pranks by not disclosing where the applicant was arrested.
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"The police cannot walk into a bank and arrest a person without the bank knowing about it.
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"The bank and police should stop insulting the court's intelligence,'' Mbor said.
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Mbor said the bank manager (fourth respondent) and the bank (5th respondent) were responsible for the faith of the applicant at the SCID.