Mrs. Anulika Ekwezor should be cooling her heels in police custody or prison by now but for the lockdown occasioned by the coronavirus pandemic.
She was arrested on Sunday by the Ikotun Police Station, Lagos, for using a dagger to inflict injuries on the face of her husband’s tenant, Mrs Marian Peter, during a disagreement over payment of electricity bill.
Anulika, who is said to have kept Peter at arm’s length over time, reportedly intervened; picked a dagger and attacked Peter. “The IGP, while urging officers to observe personal safety measures, further directs the Zonal AIGs and CPs to ensure that cases of unnecessary arrests and detention of suspects are not condoned.
“Once a case is bailable, we cannot rewrite the laws because of our interest. A bailable offence remains so. The suspect can be released. The offence is assault occasioning harm and it’s bailable. Bail is not the end of the matter. Once court resumes, the suspect can be arraigned accordingly.” Our correspondent learnt that Lukman, worked with the brother of a retired general in Ibadan, Oyo State and was arrested in connection with the kidnap and murder of his boss.
In the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, many countries across the world have begun freeing low-level offenders to decongest prisons as number of persons killed and sickened by the virus continues to swell on a daily basis. More than 1.1 million cases and over 60,000 deaths have been recorded as of Saturday.Iran, for instance, released 85,000 prisoners recently, according to official reports.
“All of these people are now extremely at risk because they can’t practise social distancing that public health officials tell us is absolutely necessary to protect ourselves,” the Deputy Director of the ACLU National Prison Project, Amy Fettig, toldIt was reported that there had been sharp declines in populations at many county jails in the US, especially in the Washington state where number of inmates at some facilities had been reduced by 50 per cent since March.
The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Montana, Mike McGrath, also directed lower court judges to “release, without bond, as many prisoners as you are able, especially those being held for non-violent offences.” To stem the spread of the pandemic, Saudi Arabia released 250 foreign detainees held for non-violent immigration and residency offences, according to the Human Rights Commission.
Libyan authorities had also announced the release of more than 450 prisoners as part of measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus that had infected at least eight people in the country. “Considering the nature of the transmission of the virus and to end the overcrowding in prisons, the cases of 4,011 prisoners have been discontinued and given pardons,” Adanech said.Beyond freeing minor offenders from police custody, the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, has called for quick decongestion of prisons in Nigeria to contain the spread of coronavirus to the facilities.
Aregbesola urged the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, states chief judges, governors and other stakeholders to come up with measures for quick decongestion of the custodial centres across the country. In the United Kingdom, government was also considered freeing some offenders from prisons in England and Wales to ease pressures of the pandemicreported that Justice Secretary, Robert Buckland was ‘keen’ to make use of release on temporary licence, whereby prisoners could be let out for short periods after a risk assessment.
Italian government has signed new measures to release some low-risk inmates to house arrest but prisoner rights group, Antigone, said the measures were insufficient given severe overcrowding in the system. He said, “The release of inmates in view of COVID-19 is proper. The condition of inmates is a recipe for explosion in the number of casualties if the disease gets to the prison.
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