The National Human Rights Commission says it has given the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation and its 36 state counterparts sufficient materials to prosecute 33 operatives of the disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad indicted in the last year’s report of a Presidential Investigative Panel.
The Executive Secretary of the NHRC, Mr Tony Ojukwu, said this while fielding questions from journalists at the headquarters of the commission in Abuja.
The Presidential Panel led by Ojukwu had between 2018 and 2019 probed complaints of brutal activities of SARS and had submitted its report to the President, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) on June 3, 2019.
The NHRC on October 19, 2020, submitted the report to the AGF accompanied with a specific list of those recommended for prosecution.
Ojukwu said the two major issues raised had been addressed by the commission.
Ojukwu said, “The issues raised by the Honourable Attorney-General of the Federation as to why the prosecution seems difficult are: One, he said he has not received the original case files. Two, he said some of the police officers must be dismissed first by the Police Service Commission before they can prosecute them, of course, that is procedural. We have worked on those conditions. We have sent all the original case files, not only to him (the AGF) but to all the states, because the law says it is either the Attorney General of the Federation or the Attorney General of the states. There are about 13 states involved, and I can assure you that we have dispatched all the original case files to all the 13 states. Secondly, we have submitted the list of these officers, with other necessary documents to both the Police Service Commission and the Inspector General of Police. So, they need to do the needful. Moving forward, I expect that, once these internal procedures are tidied up, they should be able to do what they are supposed to do. This is because, as at today, we have sorted out these two obstacles identified by the AGF.”