Yenagoa—The Federal High Court sitting in yenagoa has fixed the 28th of March 2022 for the suit seeking to enforce the fundamental rights for innocent kokorifa, the 17-year-old juvenile that was killed by a trigger happy police officer, mangrovepen.ng has gathered.
Father of late Kokorifa, Mr. Daniel Kokorifa who filed the suit with number FHC/YNG/CS/51/2022 through his Counsel, Ebikebuna Augustine Aluzu, Esq listed the Police Service Commission, Inspector General of Police, Attorney General of the Federation among others as respondents.
Kokorifa was shot and killed by Police Officer, Ex Corporal Vincent Koliamowei on the 16th of August 2016. He was said to be running errands for his mother when he met his untimely death.
The incident had sparked outrage leading to protests by youths and civil society groups led by Alagoa Morris, Nengi James and Ebikebuna Aluzu, a lawyer and rights activist.
A Bayelsa State High Court in Yenagoa, in 2018 sentenced the policeman to death by hanging over the extra-judicial killing of Kokorifa.
Police authorities in the state had maintained that the young boy belonged to a gang of armed robbers, arguing that his group exchanged gunfire with the cops before he was hit by a shot fired by the convict.
The police said the victim fired at the security agents deployed to apprehend criminals in their hideout, before leaving behind one locally made Single Barrel pistol, one live cartridge, one expended cartridge and wraps of substances suspected to be Indian hemp.
Justice Ineikade Eradiri held that that contrary to the position of the police, he was convinced that the young Kokorifa, who was running an errand for his mother when he was shot dead by a member of a police patrol team in Okaka area, was not armed at the time he was gruesomely murdered.
The judge also averred that there was no evidence that the gun allegedly recovered by the police after Kokorifa’s killing and a substance suspected to be marijuana the police said were found in his pocket, belonged to the deceased.
In the affidavit in suit number FHC/YNG/CS/51/2022 sighted by our correspondence, father of the deceased says he and his family are yet to get over the murder of his son.
“My wife upon seeing the lifeless body of our son broke down and blamed herself for sending our son on an errand to his early grave.
“I know as a fact that no amount of compensation will bring my son back to life but if the Respondents had shown any sign of remorse over the years it would go a long way to placate me and my family,” he stated.
