Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, the former Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the late General Sani Abacha, yesterday told a Lagos High Court in Ikeja that he was forced to make 28 different statements in the course of investigations put up by former President Olusegun Obasanjo to unravel alleged killings under the late General Abacha government he served.
Specifically, he told the court presided over by Justice Mufutau Olokooba that he was forced to make the statements under duress at the retired Kayode Are's panel before he was told to sign only one of the statements, which they are now using in prosecuting him.
He said this yeaterday while being led in examination in chief by Mr. Chinedu Ikegbule, defence counsel to Mr. Jubril Yakubu, the third defendant in the ongoing trial of Major Al-Mustapha and three others.
Al-Mustapha and three others including Mr James Danbaba, former Lagos Police boss; ex-Zamfara miliary administrator, Jubrin Bala Yakubu; and CSP Rabo Muhammed Lawal are answering a five-count charge of conspiracy and attempted murder of The Guardian publisher, Mr Alex Ibru, in 1996.
At the resumed hearing of the case yesterday, the defence team opened their case in the trial within trial ordered by Justice Olokooba late last year to determine the veracity, admissibility and voluntariness of some of the statements tendered by the prosecution on the third and fourth defendants.
Their counsel had objected to the tendering of the statements and some documents tendered by the prosecution as evidence during the trial.
Al-Mustapha in his evidence said all the statements were made under terrible and inhuman conditions by the investigators.
"There was no water for us to bath, we did not allowed to change our clothes. We were beaten, chained, kicked, drenched in cold water and kept in a very dark cell in the basement at the northern side of the former Force Headquarters in Abuja," he said.
He added that all the statements he made were under this condition.
The case continues today.