Nigeria Police: Why Parade/Torture Criminal Suspects?
There is what is known as the presumption of innocence enshrined in Nigerian laws and according to these laws, until an individual is pronounced to be guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction, that individual is merely a suspect or better still an accused person and should in all intent and dealings be treated as an innocent citizen.
It does not matter that there is irrefutable evidence pointing to the fact that the person committed the crime or that the individual during interrogation confessed to having committed the crime, for you to treat that person as guilty or as a criminal you will have to wait until the court says that person is guilty or is a criminal. The confession that the individual made during interrogation where he confessed to having committed the crime will be deemed to have been obtained under duress or undue influence which is inadmissible and will be discountenanced.
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Parading suspects by law enforcement agencies is a breach of the suspect’s fundamental human rights. No matter the crime the person is accused of, he should at least be treated with the courtesy of being just a suspect until he is sentenced by a court of competent jurisdiction.
The law enforcement agents will be breaking the law and committing another crime of breaching the fundamental rights of the suspects by parading them with handcuffs or chaining them or publicly brutalizing them.
This is why after a court has found the suspect not to be guilty of the crime he was accused of and the suspect has endured the worst form of degrading treatment in the hands of law enforcement agents, the suspect ends up suing the law enforcement agent(s) that abused him for fundamental rights enforcement.
The Nigerian police system of treating suspects needs to be seriously overhauled. They need to know that by law and even constitutionally, an accused person is merely a suspect and that suspect has a right to a fair hearing to determine if he is guilty or not in the crime he is accused of and until he is determined to be guilty, every right accruing to every citizen should never be denied of him.
The Constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria, the Anti-Torture Act, and other legislations clearly provide against the parade of criminal suspects as it amounts to torture and inhuman and degrading treatment.
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