3rd December, 2013
The retired military officer held the photographs up and exclaimed that the deep gashes could not have been a result of road accident!
It was the photo of Festus Iyayi’s corpse. His left chest shows two holes, one large, the other small. Other photographs show another which looks like a bullet entry hole, though smaller than the one on the chest.
As the retired military top brass said, the injuries look like the result of bullets from a pistol, not a rifle. “There is a 70 per cent probability that the man was murdered and 30 per cent that it was an accident.”
One of his reasons was that it was not likely that this kind of injury could be a result of a road accident. “If it was an accident, the impact would have caused a squeeze, not this kind of hole,” he argued.
He added that a shot from a pistol, given its close range, would cause the bullet to enter an object in this form and exit through the back. It was a reference to what looks like gashes on Iyayi’s chest and back.
The soldier also debunked the argument that the gash on Iyayi’s chest could have been created by a pointed metal rod. “The make of a bus does not support that thesis,” he submitted.
Another premise of this retired soldier’s conclusion was that if the injuries were from broken glass, the flesh would tear and the object would have settled inside the corpse. “But since it was a shot from a high velocity weapon,” the retired senior soldier argued, “it would enter and get out from the opposite end.”
Upon a closer examination of the hole, the soldier explained further the sizes of the injuries. “The big hole in the chest shows that it was a pistol. This is because a wound created by a pistol is bigger at the entrance and smaller at the exit. But if it was a Kalashikov (or AK47), it would be smaller at the entrance and bigger at the exit.” He added that an AK47 gathers momentum as it moves on, unlike pistol bullet: “Where it comes in is where it creates bigger impact.”
“There is the possibility of shooting in the confusion of that accident or that the accident could have been contrived to cover up shots,” said he.