RIGHTS lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana has urged the Body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria (BOSAN) not to stop their investigations on the raid of the home of Supreme Court Justice, Mary Odili by security officials. Rather, other persons involved in the matter should be brought to justice.
The senior lawyer made the call while reacting to the setting up of a three-man committee that comprised Adegboyega Awomolo, Prof Yemi Akinseye-George and Jibrin Okutepa to investigate the matter. BOSAN had shortly after the news of the raid, set up a three-man committee
The three-man committee met with the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami SAN over the illegal search that took place on Friday, October 29, 2021.
Falana said, “Having listened to the Attorney-General, the Committee should proceed to interview the victim of the illegal raid, the Honourable Justice Peter-Odili, the lawyers who applied for the search warrant, the Magistrate who issued the search warrant as well as the heads of the police and military personnel who executed the search warrant.
“In particular, the Magistrate ought to be interrogated over his claim that he was misled to issue the search warrant by the Ministry of Justice. The Committee should confirm the report that the Magistrate has, suo motu, revoked the search warrant.”
“In view of the denial of involvement of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, State Security Service, Attorney-General of the Federation and the Nigeria Police Force in the execution of the illegal search warrant the BOSAN may wish to inquire from the Inspector-General of Police the highly placed public officer who deployed a combined team of military and police personnel for the operation.
“Upon the conclusion of the investigation of the incident the BOSAN should publish the report of its findings. Thereafter, the BOSAN should, in conjunction with the Nigerian Bar Association, constitute a team of lawyers to prosecute the suspects that have been arrested by the Police for subjecting the Honourable Justice Mary Peter-Odili to mental and psychological torture in contravention of section 2 of the Anti Torture Act, 2017,” he added
