Aluu 4: Victims Tortured With Dogs Before Being Set On Fire

A police officer, Mr. Raphael Ezechi, told a
Rivers State High Court sitting in Port
Harcourt, at the resumed hearing in the killings
of four University of Port Harcourt, UNIPORT,
students in October 2012 in Omuokiri, Aluu
community, that a dog was used to torture the
students before they were set on fire.
Mr. Ezechi of the State Criminal Investigative
Department and a Deputy Superintendent of
Police, led in evidence by the Solicitor-General
of Rivers, Mr. Rufus Godwins, narrated that "a
team of policemen from Isiokpo Division was
dispatched to the scene of the incident to
rescue the students but due to the distance,
the students were set ablaze before the arrival
of the police."
The witness, said he took photographs of the
deceased and a dog, said to have been used
to torture the students, adding that
information was also gathered from the
Internet which were recorded.
The defence counsel, however, objected to the
prosecution's move to tender the photo
evidence as exhibits, contending that the
police officer was not the maker of the said
documents.
The defence argued that no proper foundation
had been laid for the admissibility of the
photographs, urging the court to reject same.
Responding, Mr. Godwins, the prosecution
counsel said that the foundation was laid from
records of proceedings by the court and urged
the dismissal of the objection, which he
described as misconceived by the defence.