UNIPORT killing: Court Remands Suspects in Prison

A Magistrate Court sitting in Port Harcourt, yesterday, remanded in prison the 13 suspects arrested in connection with the extra-judicial murder of four students of the University of Port Harcourt.

The suspects, including the traditional ruler of Omuokiri-Aluu, Alhaji Hassan Welewa were brought to court in tinted Hummer Bus with registration number FG 128 –F50, joined in twos with leg chains, and escorted to the courtroom by a team of heavily armed uniformed and plain clothed security police personnel. The trial magistrate, Mr. Emmanuel Woke, who slammed five-count charges against the suspects, declared that his court did not have jurisdiction to hear the case and therefore recommended that the case file be transmitted to the office of the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) for subsequent arraignment in a High Court.

According to the charge sheet number PMC/2009C/2012, they were accused of “conspiring among yourselves to commit felony to wit: murder and thereby committed an offence punishable under section 324 of the Criminal Code; Cap 37 Laws of Rivers State of Nigeria 1999.”

The other count charges accused the suspects and others at large of murdering Ugonna Obuzor, Toku Lloyd, Chiadika Biringa, and Tekenah Elkanah, by lynching and burning to death thereby committing an offence punishable under section 319 of the criminal code cap 37 volume III laws of Rivers State of Nigeria 1999.

Meanwhile, the authorities of the University of Port Harcourt have said that only justice can satisfy the bereaved families of the four slain students of the institution.

-Leadership