By OLAWALE AKINREMI

Asmau Omar, a female defendant in a case of alleged illegal arms dealing and terrorism, has told a Federal High Court in Ibadan that her purported confessional statement was obtained by duress.

Omar made the assertion before Justice Nkeonye Maha during a trial within trial, after the defence counsel, Mr. Seun Agunloye, had opposed the admissibility of the extra judicial statements tendered by the prosecution against his clients.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that Omar and three officials of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) – Olamide Okesola, Adeleke Adewale and Emmanuel Olatunji – were arraigned in 2023.

The quartet are being prosecuted by the Department of State Service (DSS) on a 15-count amended charge bordering on conspiracy, terrorism, unlawful arms dealing, aiding and abetting terrorism.

Omar, Okesola, Adewale and Olatunji had separately denied that the extra judicial statements tendered against each of them by the DSS was not voluntarily made.

Speaking through an Hausa language interpreter, Omar said that operatives of the DSS investigating the matter threatened to kill her if she refused to cooperate and write the confessional statement admitting participating in the crime.

“In the video clip that was played in February in the court, the DSS gave me a bottle of Fanta drink, but I was not the one that drank it.

“On the day they put me in the cell, they removed my dress and I had to sleep with only my short under ware.

“Then, they started beating me, because I did not say what they wanted me to say.

“They beat me further and told me that they will kill me if I don’t cooporate with them.

“For not complying with them, they chained my legs and hung me.

“I was smiling only at the point when the DSS operatives were giving me the clothes they took from me and I was not the one that drank the Fanta drink you saw me holding in the video clip,” Omar claimed.

During further examination, another defendant, Okesola, informed the court that he was hung and beaten with iron rod before falsely admitting to committing an illegal act of terrorism.

According to the defendant, he did not make the confessional statement in the presence of his lawyer or any of his relatives.

In his own testimony, Adewale stated that DSS investigators subjected him to inhuman treatment when they chained his legs, hands and tortured him.

He added that the investigators dictated what he wrote in the confessional statement to him.

Similarly, Olatunji said that he was the author of the extra judicial statement, but that he wrote same under duress.

However, the four defendants agreed during cross examination by the prosecuting counsel, Mr T.A. Nurudeen that the NSCDC, Oyo State command, the NSCDC head office in Abuja as well as the DSS all conducted separate investigations on them before they were eventually arraigned.

Subsequently, Maha adjourned the suit until Dec. 4 for adoption of written address. (NAN)