The trial of the five suspects involved in the Offa robbery in April 2018 continued on Friday at the State High Court sitting in Ilorin.
In the arraignment before Justice Halimah Salman, the suspects of Offa Robbery told the court how their confessional statements were obtained by the police.
Ayoade Akinnibosun (First suspect), in his testimony, told the trial judge that he gave his statement under duress and not voluntarily.
He explained that he was tortured and shot in two legs, alleging that the police asked him to implicate the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, but he refused.
Ayoade claimed that 5 of their men were shot dead in his presence, in order to force them to do the bidding of the police.
He alleged that he was forced to sleep on the spot where the men were killed, adding that his hands and legs were tied for days.
Ayoade also told the trial judge that six hefty stones were placed on his back and denied food for nearly one week while he was being tortured.
He continued, they were kept inside the generator room at Police Headquarters Abuja while a dismissed police officer, identified as Michael Adiukwu, was brought to identify them if they were part of the robbery gang.
The man denied knowing them and was shot dead on the spot.
He said, he was shown an already written statement which he was asked to sign and agreed to do so for fear of being killed.
The suspect insisted that whatever he said during the parade of the press conference was written for him to memorise and confess to the public.
He said, the police warned him not to implicate them that the statement was made under duress.
Ayoade told the trial judge that he was given a 4-page statement to sign but he could not because his fingers were not functioning due to torture.
He claimed that one of his fingers was placed on the documents for thumb printing and his request to read and go through the statement was turned down.
The suspect was cross-examined by the prosecution counsel after giving his testimony.
Mathias Emeribe (The defence counsel), asked for further medical checkup to determine if the wounds Ayoade sustained were truly from gunshots.
Justice Salman, however, turned down the request until proper trial.
Ibikunle Ogunleye (second suspect), was thereafter called to the dock and he corroborated the first accused, Ayoade’s testimony of how he was tortured and how Michael Adiukwu was killed.
The third suspect, Abraham Adeola also repeated the same process of how they were tortured both at the Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (F-SARS) office in Ilorin and Abuja.
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