Federation of International Women Lawyers, FIDA has instituted N10M damages suit against the Imo State Police Command for illegal detention of nine year old boy, Chinecherem Owuamalam for two years.
The command had allegedly arrested and detained the minor who is eleven years old now, when he was nine years old and in primary for the murder of one Mrs Oguoma.
Master Owuamalam was living with the woman at the time of the incident and had accompanied her to the farm on the fateful day she was gruesomely murdered.
Following this, he was arrested and detained briefly at Nwaoriubi Divisional Police Office, before been transferred to Owerri and allegedly detained without trial.
Representative of FIDA, Barr Euphemia Eleonu who spoke to Nigeria Newspoint on the issue in Owerri disclosed that the body decided to fight for the little boy’s rights because the police abused them.
According to her it amounted to recklessness and lawlessness on the part of the police to detain a minor for so long without any single charge filed against him adding that since FIDA intervened nobody has also stepped forward to own up the matter.
She pointed out that the action of the police had disrupted the minors life as well as that of his family which had to suffer the mental, emotional and psychological trauma arising from his ordeal.
The Human Rights lawyer and activist called on the judiciary as the last hope of the common man to ensure that justice is done in the matter to assuage the torture and trauma inflicted on the Owuamalam family and serve as deterrent to the police and other security agencies and their personnel who may be contemplating indulging in this kind of arbitrary and illegal conduct in the future.
