4 Joseph Robinson
Igbotako
Ondo State
19th February. 1993
The Commissioner of Police
Ondo State Police Command
Igbotako.
Dear Sir,
REQUEST FOR MY RELEASE.
I am writing formally to request for my release from unlawful detention which the police under your command has Imposed on me for a crime I did not commit. I have been detained for six months now without being charged before a court or tribunal.
What your men accused me of is armed robbery. It happened that I was walking down Oyegbusi Street in Igbotako around 8:00 pm in the night. Many people were walking along the road side like myself and few vechicles were moving in a free flowing traffic. Suddenly, I heard gunshots and like other passers-by, I noticed that some policemen were gun shots with six men in a relatively new peugeout 505 car. There was a great pandemonium, and confusion was let loose as people ran helter skelter to save their lives. I ran blindly across the street, looking for a place to hide myself.
In the bid to look for a house nearby to run into, I noticed that all the shops and houses were locked. I, therefore, myself at the back of a house using the back fence of the house as a coverage. I was still in my hiding when two policemen came to arrest me and threatened to shoot me down if I attempted to run.
I later learnt that the armed robbers abandoned their car and while two of them were killed in the shoot out, four of them escaped into the labyrinths of the houses around. As your men claimed, it was their search for these escaped armed robbers that led them to my hide-out.
All my pleadings with your men fell on deaf ears and all attempts made by my relatives to see me were foiled by the police. I have since then been detained under inhuman conditions for a crime I do not know anything about.
I would be very grateful if you could look into my case and effect my release.
Yours faithfully,
(signature)
Francis Aiyejina.