By Felix Igbekoyi
Correspondent, Asaba
A Deputy Comptroller of Prisons, Delta State Command, Wisdom Wure Diete, has confessed in court that prison officers sexually harass female visitors, even married ones, and extort money from them and tanker drivers in contravention of prison rules and regulations.
Diete, facing charges of conspiracy and stealing, was charged at a Delta High Court sitting in Asaba along with Peter Ayamede, a junior officer attached to the Ogwashi-Uku Prison, by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2012 for conspiracy and stealing.
While lamenting his ordeal in the hands of EFCC, he also linked his ordeal to his subordinate officers whom he disciplined for intransigence.
During cross-examination at the resumed hearing of the case with No A/EFCC/1C/13 on Tuesday, Diete said his woes began after he transferred some officers as a result of intransigence especially when the prison guards took the telephone numbers of female visitors and called them despite the fact that some of the visitors were married, in contravention of prison rules and regulations. He said female visitors and inmates were sexually harassed by the officers.
The accused told the court that he took disciplinary actions against the officers after he discovered that a security booth created to protect three trucks laden with petroleum products was turned into a point of extortion.
Diete, while testifying, said when he resumed duties on June 7, 2011 and while on routine check around the prison premises, he discovered that three trucks were impounded by the EFCC and brought for safe keeping at Ogwashi-Uku Prisons but that the three trucks were not included in his handover notes.
He told the court that he notified Delta State Comptroller, Emmanuel Bassey, that the contents of the three trucks parked at the prison premises were leaking and that his superior officer informed him that he was unaware that the trucks had petroleum products in them.
But the State Prosecutor, A.I Arogha, said the accused, at various times, sold about 180, 206 litre-drums and also gave the then Comptroller, Delta Command, 20, 206 litres drums to run the generator of his hotel in Akwa-Ibom State.
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