Gunmen yesterday attacked a French couple, Mr. Nagnan Denis, 52, and Mrs. Nagnan Mee Lavaud Liana, 53, which resulted in the death of Mr. Denis in Ebonyi State.
It was gathered that they were attacked by gunmen around 8:00pm along the Abomege axis of Onicha Local Council of Ebonyi State.
The attack led to the death of Denis, who was allegedly shot in the leg and given several machete cuts on different parts of his body until he lost consciousness and later died on the spot.
Confirming the attack the state Commissioner of Police CP Maigari Dikko said that the Command has commenced full investigation into the incident noting that 32 suspects have been arrested in the early hours of yesterday and were already being transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID) of the state Police Command for further interrogation and prosecution where necessary.
Maigari described the attack as unfortunate explaining that the French couple were tourists who had travelled through several countries to get to Nigeria, adding that about 1,150 Euros and N13,000 was also stolen from them.
“Thirty-two suspects were arrested in the early hours of this morning and they are currently being transferred to the SCID for investigation and screening,” he said.
According to him, the wife of the victim who reported the incident to the police division in the area told him through an interpreter that she would be able to identify the people who killed her husband if she saw them.
“We got the report yesterday from the DPO of Onicha local council about the French nationals, a couple.
They were tourists who left their country In December 2014 and arrived Nigeria through Badagry on May 30th, that is last Saturday.” “They passed through Abeokuta, Benin, Onitsha, Enugu to Ebonyi with their vehicle with one door with Caravan on it; they were passing through Ebonyi to Calabar when the incident happened.”
“They arrived Abomega in the night and decided to spend the night there. According to the deceased’s wife, her husband had complained that he was tired and secondly it was night-time.” “As fate would have it, they didn’t report their presence to any law enforcement agents around, but decided to look for a place that was naturally endowed with shelter, a place that has a tree and so they went two kilometres off the road to pass the night in a location near the bush.” “They found a location where we have a quarry site and decided to camp there.
Unfortunately, I believe that as they were going there that they were spotted and, according to the wife of the deceased, when they were at the location, a motorcyclist, together with another man, asked to know who they were.”
“Unless investigation proves otherwise, we are thinking that the motorcyclist was the informant to the hoodlums. After an hour that he left, three people came into the car and by then they had already erected their tent on top of the vehicle,” he said.
Dikko who noted that the police headquarters, including the French Embassy, had already been informed about the incident, added that the deceased was shot by the hoodlums during an argument as they further inflicted machete-cut injuries on him.
He stated that arrangements are on to ensure that the deceased, whose body has been deposited at a mortuary in Enugu State, was transferred to France without delay even as he stressed the readiness of the Command to clampdown on the activities of miscreants in the state.
