By Imo High Court witnessed a strange incident yesterday as it was prepared to hear the case of Henry Nwabueze, a notorious kidnap kingpin who has been arrested since July 2015.
BlackBox Nigeria gathered that the Court witnessed a tensed battle as the unknown gunmen stormed the premises when Nwabueze popularly known as Vampire was brought in from the prison.
After a supposed fierce gun battle that injured several people in the premises, Vampire was successfully abducted alongside other suspects awaiting trial.
Reacting to this development, Governor Rochas Okorocha has declared a bounty of N5m on him, stating that the people of the State should help the security agencies re-arrest the gunmen and Vampire who are currently at large.
An eyewitness who likes to maintain anonymity revealed to the press that they were all seated in the Court when all was set for Vampire to have his day before the Judge before the gunmen stormed in and disrupted the hearing.
“We were here in the court premises when a lawyer came to call us to enter room three for hearing. Shortly after that we started hearing sporadic gunshots. About six gunmen entered the court and started shooting. Some people were even wounded. They came with a Jeep and eventually they whisked away one of the inmates who the prisons officials brought to the court for hearing. The gunshot lasted over 10 minutes,” the eyewitness told reporters.
Speaking on the incident, the spokesperson of the Nigeria Police Force, Imo State Command, Maduba James said he thought DSS officials were involved in the shootout.
Confirming the abduction, he said since the main suspect was a kingpin of an unknown group, he thought high powered security presence would have been arranged until he was informed that couple of Police officers at the Court premises sustained injuries after the gun battle.
