An Inter Press Service Feature

By Lahai J. Samboma Reprint | | Print |

LONDON, Dec 29 1994 (IPS) - Britain’s independent Police Complaints Authority has been forced to launch an investigation into the death of a Nigerian man in police custody following concerted pressure from anti-racist campaigners and the dead man’s relatives.

The 34-year-old Nigerian, Oluwashiji Lapite, was allegedly bludgeoned to death by at least eight police officers in Stoke Newington, north London, when they tries to arrest the builder and decorator on suspicion of carrying the drug crack cocaine.

A spokesperson for New Scotland Yard says that during the early hours of Friday, Dec. 16, two plain clothes officers tried to arrest Lapite after he began “acting suspiciously”.

“As he fled from the police, he was seen to throw a substance away. A struggle broke out between the suspect and the two officers and reinforcements had to be called in. The substance was later found to be 41 grammes of crack cocaine.

“The officers arrested him and rushed him to a London Hospital. He was dead on arrival,” the spokesperson said.

Eyewitnesses have said that the arresting officers — at least eight of them — used excessive force while trying to arrest Lapite, a married man with a daughter aged two and half months who arrived in London from Nigeria just two years ago.

Anti-racist campaigners here charged that his death was racially- motivated and that police would not have been so heavy handed had he been a white person.

Campaigners who have seen Lapite’s body say he had a “deep and large” dent on his forehead, cuts and bruises to his face and lacerated lips. They have ordered a new independent post-mortem.

Said Palma Black of the Anti-Racist Alliance (ARA): “He would be alive today had he been a white man. The police claim he was a drug dealer but will not wash with people like us who know that the police are a racist institution.”

Lapite’s relatives are shocked at police insistence that he was a drug dealer. They say he was an honest and hardworking man who was very devoted to his family.

“This should never have happened to anybody in any country. Human life should not be wasted like this,” his sister, Sinmi Akindele said. “I want justice and to make sure this never happens to anybody again. Everyone is angry.”