One
of the three dismissed policemen who are standing trial for the killing
of a 20-year-old Emmanuel Victor at a checkpoint in Yenagoa, Bayelsa
State, has admitted that they fired the gunshots that killed Victor.
Victor was killed on October 16, 2011 in
the presence of his mother who tried in vain to stop the policeman from
killing her son. He was allegedly killed for condemning extortion and
bribery at the checkpoint.
After the shooting, the police were said
to have removed a copy of the Bible he held in his hand and replaced it
with a pair of scissors.
But Lucky Oberemelu, who was
cross-examined at the Nembe High Court, Yenagoa, on Tuesday, said the
deceased died from a gunshot fired by one of them.
In a desperate effort to exonerate
himself from the shooting, he said his colleague, Mathew Ighaghe, pulled
the trigger that killed Victor.
While admitting that he was a trained policeman, Obemerelu denied receiving training on disarming armed assailants.
He listed the training he had received
so far as an inspector to include Police Mobile Force Training, combat
training, rescue training and General Duty Training.
Despite his training, he claimed that
the late youngster stabbed him on the right and left hands before
collecting his smoke gun and smashing it into two.
When asked whether the smoke gun was made of metal, he said it was made of aluminum.
When asked why he was only assigned a
smoke gun on the day of the incident despite being the most experienced
policeman, he said, “Anything could be assigned to anybody.”
He further claimed that his colleagues were a little far from him when the deceased stabbed him several times with scissors.
The suspect, who initially claimed that
he saw the deceased attack John and Mathew when they came to rescue him,
however, said he could no longer tell the time his colleagues were
attacked by the deceased.
“He attacked me and I ran away. I ran 50 meters and was helpless. So, I don’t know what happened,” he said.
When asked how to disarm somebody with a
scissors, he said, “I am empowered by Force Order 237 to use my
available weapon to disarm who wants to attack me”.
Obemerelu, who claimed to be married
with four children, told the court that he started his police career in
Ibadan in 1989, served in Oyo and Enugu states before coming to Bayelsa
State.
He said he was from Edo State.
PUNCH
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