24th July, 2021
Yoruba nation agitator, Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho is still in handcuffs inside the cell he is being detained in a police station in Cotonou, Republic of Benin, his lawyer, Ibrahim David Salami, has said.
Salami, who is one of the lawyers representing Igboho in his ongoing trial at a court in Cotonou made the revelation while speaking to BBC Yoruba in Cotonou on Saturday morning.
He said the police have so far refused entreaties from him and other lawyers representing Igboho to remove the handcuffs.
But the lawyer described the claim that the agitator who was arrested alongside his wife, Ropo at an airport in Cotonou on Monday evening was chained to the ground, beaten or injured as false.
Salami, who is also a law lecturer in a university in the French country noted that putting handcuffs on a suspect in detention is against the law and fundamental human rights as observed in Benin Republic.
He said, “We lawyers representing Igboho are five. When we went to see him at the police station, we did not see any sign that he was beaten and he was not chained.
“What they did which is bad and unusual here is that he was handcuffed despite the fact that he was already locked up in a cell.
“So, because of that,he cannot eat or do anything by himself. But we tried- because I’ m just a lawyer, but a lecturer of law and we know that what they did was against fundamental human rights.
“We called the attention of the Police and the prosecutor to this, but Igboho is still in handcuff inside the cell as at now.
Salami also reiterated that Igboho was arrested by the police in Cotonou, not because he has broken any law in the country, but because the Nigerian government has written Benin Republic that he should be arrested if he is seen there.
He added Igboho was not caught with forged passport of Benin Republic at the airport where he was arrested alongside Ropo, his wife.
“The passport that was found on him was that of Nigeria and inside the passport, he has a resident card of Germany. There is no visa because he has no need of visa to go to Germany. That’s how both of them ( Igboho and his wife) were arrested.”