The Lagos State Government has on Tuesday, cleared and ordered the release of five Dowen students and five employees of the school, who were linked to the death of Sylvester Oromoni.
This followed the legal advice from the Lagos State Director of Public Prosecution, DPP, Ms. Adetutu Oshinusi who cleared the suspects based on the interim and final autopsy reports issued by the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital.
According to the legal advice, the toxicology report of post mortem samples, that did not indicate the presence of any toxic or poisonous substance in Oromoni’s body. And that of the Central Hospital, Warri was in agreement as to the cause of death namely: Septicaemia, Lobar Pneumonia with Acute Pyelonephritis, Pyomyositis of the right ankle, and Acute Bacteria Pneumonia due to severe Sepsis.
In conclusion, “no prima facie case of murder, involuntary manslaughter and or malicious administering of poison with intent to harm against the five students, Favour Benjamin aged 16, Micheal Kashamu (15), Edward Begue (16), Ansel Temile (14) and Kenneth Inyang (15).”
The state government also cleared the Dowen students of belonging to an unlawful society due to insufficient facts to establish the offense.
She said, “available facts in the duplicate case file, the investigation carried out by the Police did not reveal that any secret society name, tattoo or insignia of any unlawful society was found in the possession of any of the suspects during the investigation carried out by the Police.
“To hold otherwise would amount to sniffing for an offense and a speculative act which is not permitted in law. It is trite law that suspicion no matter how grave cannot be a ground for conviction”.
For this reason, the state government ordered the release of all suspects if they are still held in custody.
