DNA test frees Nigerian sentenced to death in Indonesia – Lawyer

A United States-based Nigerian lawyer, Emmanuel Ogebe, who helped secure the release of a death row inmate, Emmanuel Ihejirika, from an Indonesian prison, said the DNA test was crucial to the latter’s release.

Ihejirika, who had spent 20 years in prison, was on death row before being released and acquitted by the country’s Supreme Court.

The Chairman of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, announced on Saturday, March 14, 2024, that Ogebe had taken the case pro bono and won at the Supreme Court.

The lawyer, who spoke exclusively to Saturday PUNCH, explained that Ihejirika was arrested over a fake Sierra Leone passport.

He said the Nigerian Immigration Service had no database and his office had to conduct DNA tests to prove Ihejirika’s innocence.

The international lawyer said the DNA helped establish the prisoner’s family relationship and true nationality.

He said: “In any case, since he was arrested on a false Sierra Leonean passport, we had to establish his true identity as a Nigerian. Unfortunately, the Nigerian Immigration Service at the time did not have a retrieval database, so we had to use DNA tests on him in Indonesia and on his relatives in Ebonyi to establish his relationship and therefore nationality.”

Earlier, Ogebe said Ihejirika was captured in Indonesia after he was “unfortunately trafficked by drug cartels using a false passport.”

He added that other Nigerians ended up in prisons in the Asian country and other countries.