The Lagos State Judicial Panel on Restitution for victims of SARS on Saturday awarded the sum of N11million as compensation to two victims of police brutality.
With this, the panel has since inception, given out a total of N68. 25 million to 12 petitioners.
The widow of late Rasheed Olanrewaju Kareem was awarded the sum of N10million for the extra judicial killing of her spouse.
According to the brother of the deceased, Olalekan Bankole, who testified before the panel on February 16, the deceased was shot in the head by police officers from the Area C Command in Surulere during the #EndSARS protests on October 21, 2020.
The panel found that the police authorities failed to investigate the unlawful shooting of unarmed persons at the Tejuosho and Aralile areas of Surulere, Lagos, as well as the extrajudicial killing of the deceased and other persons.
Justice Doris Okuwobi, Chairman of the panel, has therefore directed the Nigeria Police to carry out an independent investigation into the sporadic and deliberate shooting, in order to confirm who carried out the shooting and prosecute them accordingly.
Another victim, Yinka Austin Adebayo, was awarded N1 million as compensation for the unlawful arrest, brutality and torture meted out on him by the police in Lagos. The incident took place between September 28 and 30, 2017.
In Adebayo’s case, the panel found that the totality of the petitioner’s evidence was strong and uncontroverted by the Police and his evidence was corroborated by the evidence of the second witness as proof that victim’s rights were infringed upon unjustifiably, having been cleared by the DPO of the Ojo Police Command in Lagos of committing any crime, yet he was still transferred to the SARS unit..
The panel condemned the illegal confiscation of his car and awarded him N1million as compensation for the violation of his personal liberty and the degrading treatment he suffered.