Press Release/
Rasheed Adetunji now 35 years old, was raised by his blind father after his mother deserted them. The bullying he experienced over their poor condition made him leave Ibadan after his secondary education to Lagos where he began work as a Conductor and later ventured into DJ [disc jockeying] at Eleko Beach.
Sometime in April 2015, Rasheed while working at a birthday party was arrested by some police officers in plain clothes. They took him to Ikeja SARS office where he was held for two months.
When the OC SARS insisted that all those detained should be released or taken to court if they had a case against them, the IPO took him to court alongside others who couldn’t pay for their release. He was merged with two other persons he met in SARS custody and charged with kidnapping.
He was remanded at Kirikiri maximum prison and he spent the next 6 years without an appearance in court. Unknown to him, his file was missing, and no one remembered that he was remanded. He couldn’t engage the services of a lawyer as his father was poor and blind, while his pregnant wife was also struggling to feed herself.
His friend kept searching for pro bono lawyers and luckily for him, he found Headfort Foundation online in 2019. [Oluyemi Orija] @OluyemiOrija took his brief and began the search for his file. It was in March 2020 that she had a breakthrough and got him a date in court.
Due to the effect of COVID-19 and EndSARS, the court did not sit all through 2020. In July 2021, he had his second appearance in court after sitting in prison for years awaiting trial. His case was assigned to our lawyer, George Ayanjompe from @Abdu_SAandCo.
After 8 adjournments with no evidence or witness to prove the charge of kidnapping, the Court granted the application of our counsel and dismissed the charges against him.
Rasheed regained freedom on the 1st day of February after unjustly awaiting trial for 8 years in custody.
Many people like Rasheed are still languishing in prisons. Kindly donate to Headfort Foundation so we could secure the freedom of more innocent and indigent inmates;
6199153012 (for Naira)
6199153029 (for Dollars)
Headfort Foundation. FCMB
Or donate through PayPal via bit.ly/HeadfortFPayPal
Thank you!
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