Aluu 4: Dog was used to torture victims – Policeman

PORT HARCOURT — A police officer, Mr. Raphael Ezechi, told a Rivers State High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, at the resumed hearing in the killings of four University of Port Harcourt, UNIPORT, students in October 2012 in Omuokiri, Aluu community, that a dog was used to torture the students before they were set on fire.

Mr. Ezechi of the State Criminal Investigative Department and a Deputy Superintendent of Police, led in evidence by the Solicitor-General of Rivers, Mr. Rufus Godwins, narrated that “a team of policemen from Isiokpo Division was dispatched to the scene of the incident to rescue the students but due to the distance, the students were set ablaze before the arrival of the police.”

Suspects in the murder of The UNIPORT FOUR at the Rivers State High Court,Port Harcourt, yesterday. Photo: Nwankpa Chijioke

The witness, said he took photographs of the deceased and a dog, said to have been used to torture the students, adding that information was also gathered from the Internet which were recorded.

The defence counsel, however, objected to the prosecution’s move to tender the photo evidence as exhibits, contending that the police officer was not the maker of the said documents.

The defence argued that no proper foundation had been laid for the admissibility of the photographs, urging the court to reject same.

Responding, Mr. Godwins, the prosecution counsel said that the foundation was laid from records of proceedings by the court and urged the dismissal of the objection, which he described as misconceived by the defence.