Justice Olabisi Akinlade of a Lagos State High Court sitting in Igbosere on Monday sentenced a former Divisional Police Officer (DPO), Mr. Segun Fabunmi , to 10 years in prison for manslaughter following the death of one Ademola Aderintola Daramola during the January 9, 2012 fuel subsidy protest in Lagos.
Justice Akinlade also found Fabunmi, a dismissed Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP), guilty of shooting three other persons – Alimi Abubakar, Egbujor Samuel and Chizorba Odoh, during the protest, thereby causing them grievous bodily harm.
She sentenced him to five years on this count, but both sentences are to run concurrently.
Fabunmi, of No. 12 Oyewole Street, Ogudu, Lagos, who joined the police in 1984, was arraigned on May 5, 2013 by the Lagos State government on a seven-count charge bordering on murder, attempted murder and causing grievous bodily harm.
At the time of the incident, the defendant was the DPO of Pen Cinema Police Station, Agege and had led out his men to Yaya-Abatan area of Ogba following intelligence report that there was a disturbance in that area and that hoodlums were breaking people’s windscreens and holding innocent people hostage.
He had testified that when he got there, there was break down of law and order and that immediately the hoodlums saw him and the seven other policemen on his team, they started throwing bottles, sticks, cutlasses, stones and Molotov Curtails.
Fabunmi said he was attacked by the mob, during which the rifle containing 60 bullets went off. But he denied shooting the deceased or anyone else.
The court agreed with the defendant that there was indeed a mob at the scene of the incident, but concluded that his testimonies on whether or how an attempt was made to snatch his AK47 rifle and who fired the weapon were conflicting.
