A popular hip-hop musician was assassinated in 1996 and some twenty-seven years later, someone was arrested and charged in connection with the murder just a few days ago.
The news reported that “a self-described gangster, Duane “Keefe-D” Davis, who, according to police and prosecutors, masterminded the 1996 shooting death of Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas, made his first court appearance on a murder charge on Wednesday”.
I remember having a discussion with some mutual friends yesterday and they were asking me how it is even possible that someone was arrested after two and half decades over the murder of Tupac.
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One thing about crimes and criminal matters is once a case file has been opened over a crime and an investigation is commenced, the case file will not be closed until the matter has been concluded and the perpetrators arrested, charged and convicted.
If a criminal case is yet to be solved, the case file will remain open and no matter how long it takes, the long arms of the law will always stretch to catch up with the perpetrators.
It is quite important to note that unlike civil cases like land dispute, contract dispute etc where the case have to be solved or taken to court within a time frame if not the matter will be statute barred due to effluxion of time, there is no time limit, effluxion of time or statute barring on criminal cases. A murderer can be arrested, charged and convicted even a hundred years after the murder has been committed. The investigating police officer (IPO) or the investigating officer (IO) handling a criminal investigation can die, retire or get transferred to another unit and another officer can take over the investigation and continue from where the previous officer stopped. A criminal case file cannot be closed unless it is presumed that the matter has been totally solved.
I think the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s infamous mantra that I used to hear some of my acquaintances working at the commission joke around with is “no matter how it takes, we will always get you”. Truth be told, there are some financial crimes and money laundering cases that happened years ago but the EFCC is still actively pursuing the case. It is if only the perpetrator is dead that he or she will no longer be arrested and charged.
Despite the non-challant and corruption-infested attitude of the police in Nigeria, there are some murder cases in court now that the act took place some decades ago but the suspect has just been arrested and the prosecution just commenced. I remember a client telling me that he had even forgotten about the crime; he committed the crime some eight years ago while he was still at the University only for police to come knocking on his door to arrest him some eight years later after he had left university and even relocated out of that city to another city.
That is how criminal investigations work sometimes, after the perpetrator thinks that he or she has gotten away with it, fresh evidence may pop up to pin the perpetrator to the crime.
