Gunmen yesterday killed a French couple, Mr Nagnan Denis, 52, and Mrs. Nagnan Mee Lavaud Liana, 53, on their way back to Abakaliki along Abomege axis of Onicha Local Government Area of Ebonyi State.
Commissioner of Police, Maigari Dikko, confirmed the incident, stressing that 32 suspects were in the early hours of yesterday arrested in connection with the incident. He said they were already being transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department, SCID, of the state Police Command for further interrogation and prosecution.
Dikko, who described the victims as tourists, who had traveled through several countries to get to Nigeria, added that about 1,150 euros and N13,000 were also stolen from them by the hoodlums.
He said: “Thirty-two suspects were arrested in the early hours of this morning and are currently being transferred to SCID for investigation and screening.”
According to him, the wife of the victim who reported the incident to the police division in the area told me through an interpreter that she could identify her husband’s killers if she saw them.
“We got the report yesterday from the DPO of Onicha LGA about the French nationals, a couple; they were tourists who left their country on December 2014 and arrived Nigeria through Badagry on May 3, that is last Saturday.
“They passed through Abeokuta, Benin, Onitsha, Enugu to Ebonyi in their one-door caravan; they were passing through Ebonyi to Calabar when the incident happened.
“They arrived Abomega at night and decided to spend the night there. According to the deceased’s wife, her husband complained that he was tired and that it was night.
“As fate would have it, they didn’t report their presence to any law enforcement agents around, but decided to look for a naturally endowed shelter, a place that has trees and went two kilometres off the road to pass the night, near the bush.
“They found a place – a quarry site and decided to camp there. Unfortunately, I believe as they were going there, they were seen, and according to the wife of the deceased, when they were at the location, a motorcyclist together with a man asked to know who they were.
“Unless investigation proves otherwise, we are thinking that the motorcyclist was the informant to the hoodlums. After an hour he left, three people came into the car and by then they had already erected their tent on top of the vehicle.”
The commissioner, who noted that police headquarters including the French Embassy had already been informed of the incident, added that the deceased was shot by the hoodlums during an argument as they further inflicted machete-cut injuries on him.
He stated that arrangements were on to ensure that the deceased whose body had been deposited at a mortuary in Enugu State is transferred to France without delay, even as he stressed the readiness of the command to clampdown on the activities of miscreants in the state.
Nationalmirrow
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