LAGOS A man condemned to hang when he was 16
because of confessions extracted under torture has been pardoned after 10 years
on death row, Nigerian and international human rights activists said Monday.
The rights groups, who say his sentencing was illegal,
describe his case as one of many examples of the injustices visited on
Nigerians by a system tainted by corruption.
Nigeria's new President Muhammadu Buhari, who was
inaugurated Friday, has promised to reform the justice system.
In response to the campaign by the human rights groups,
Delta State Gov. Emmanuel Uduaghan signed a pardon for Moses Akatugba and three
other death row inmates as one of his final acts before leaving office last
week.
"Moses Akatugba has been living each day of his life in
prison under trauma and agony ... expecting the hangman's visit," Justine
Ijeomah, executive director of Nigeria's Human Rights, Social Development and
Environmental Foundation, wrote in one of many letters over months of
campaigning.
Together with London-based Amnesty International, activists
gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures requesting the victim's freedom.
Akatugba was a schoolboy when soldiers arrested him for
allegedly stealing three cellphones. He was delivered to police officers who
tortured him, including tearing out his finger and toe nails with pliers, until
he signed confessions admitting to armed robbery, the activists said.
Armed robbery carries a mandatory death sentence in Nigeria,
but minors are supposed to be exempt. Police often use torture to extract
confessions which are used in courts despite laws prohibiting both, according
to the latest U.S. State Department report on human rights in Nigeria. Torture
in prisons also is common, it said.
"Nigerian governors should commute the death sentences
of all death row prisoners ... including many who are at imminent risk of
execution after similarly flawed criminal investigations," said Netsanet
Belay, Amnesty International's Africa director.
Ijeomah said she is traveling to Port Harcourt, the Delta
state capital, to complete formalities for Akatugba's release, hoped for later
this week.
By MICHELLE FAUL
AP
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