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A man standing trial this morning at the Samuel Ilori Court, Ogba, Lagos has committed suicide within the court premises.
According to an eye witness at the scene, the deceased was standing trial over a case relating to a debt of N40,000 only which he was unable to settle.
After his case was heard and adjourned at the court 20 of Samuel Ilori Court on Wednesday morning the deceased jumped from the third floor of the court house.
The eye witness could not ascertain the name and other details of the deceased when the news was broken to Nation Wire.
The incidence is similar to that of Slobodan Praljak, a former commander of Bosnian Croat forces who took his own life by drinking what he said was a bottle of “poison.”
Praljak was a commander of Bosnian Croat forces in the Bosnian war from 1992 to 1995, according to the AP. He was one of six Bosnian Croat political and military leaders who appeared in court the day he committed suicide who were convicted in 2013 by the United Nations on a number of charges of war crimes against Muslims, according to the AP.
According to the report, Toma Fila, a Serbian lawyer, told the AP that “pills and small quantities of liquids” would not be flagged by court security, which follows procedures similar to those at airports.
A report reads, “Right after Praljak’s 20-year sentence was upheld, in The Hague at the U.N.’s International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, he yelled, ‘I am not a war criminal,’ and proceeded to drink from a small bottle.” Unlike the Lagos incidence, Praljak’s episode was captured on the courtroom’s video feed.
Nigerian court authorities must however learn from the episode and device a better means of securing lives of convicted and awaiting trial persons in court houses across the country.
