Last week, Apostle Johnson Suleiman’s convoy was attacked and about seven of his aides lost their lives in the attack including his police escorts.
One of the attackers was later apprehended by the local security group and they were able to disarm him. A police officer was invited to the scene to take the apprehended assailant into custody and to quiz out some information that will lead to the apprehension of the rest assailants. The police officer got to the scene, and saw the assailant already disarmed, detained inside a vehicle, brutally beaten by youths, unarmed and looking powerless, the police officer brought out his rifle and shot him dead on the spot.
Some people out of emotions have come out to publicly defend this rash act of the police officer shooting one of the attackers but, emotions are not law.
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Commonsensically, I am yet to make meaning out of the reason why the police officer acted in that manner; was he just overzealous, or trigger-happy and excited, or was he particularly pained and provoked by the death of some of his colleagues who lost their lives in the attack and decided to pay back the attacker in his own coin immediately.
Whatever his reason could be, his act of shooting a person who is unarmed and has already been captured is legally unjustified and this amounts to murder. He will be prosecuted to have murdered a person. It does not matter that the guy was caught red-handed as one of the attackers of the Apostle’s convoy, the law is that the assailant is to be presumed innocent until he is tried in a court of competent jurisdiction and found guilty. This is a trite principle of the law.
The only instance when a police officer or any security agent can shoot a person and be legally justified under combatants rules of engagement is when the security agent has a reason to believe that his life or the lives of those around him is threatened and he can only stay alive or keep others alive and safe if he shoots the assailant first, ie it is only in “kill or be killed” situation is an agent permitted to shoot an assailant under rules of engagement; if there are other available means to disarm and apprehend the assailant without killing him, the security agent is expected to first explore that options.
In this instance, the life of the police officer is neither threatened nor the lives of those around because the assailant is no longer armed, hence there is no justification for the police officer to gun down the assailant.
The police officer will only be justified in shooting one of the attackers if the attacker was found to still be armed, but according to the video we saw, he has already been disarmed.
The police officer cannot as well plead the defense of provocation or that he acted out of the heat of passion, being provoked by the fact that some of his colleagues were shot down by the assailants because there has been an interval of time between when the attack happened and when the assailant was apprehended. For the defense of provocation to avail a person, it must be clear that the corresponding reaction happened immediately or that the reaction follows the action instantaneously.
No matter how emotional you want to get over the matter, the fact that the police officer shot one of the assailants who has already been apprehended could be interpreted that the policeman intentional did that as a “cover-up mechanism” because he does not want the assailant to be interrogated hence exposing some information which may implicate the police officer and his action amounts to murder within the provisions of S. 316 of the criminal code.