By EMMA AMAIZE
ONE of the suspects arrested in connection with the October 1, 2010 Independence Day bombings in Abuja, Charles Okah, reportedly collapsed inside his cell at Kuje Prisons, Abuja, at the weekend, and was rushed to the National Hospital, Abuja, by prisons’ officials.
Sunday Vanguard learnt that he had a seizure and fainted, on Friday night. He was taken to the hospital around 10.00 p.m. in a critical condition.
His lawyer, Festus Keyamo, told Sunday Vanguard, yesterday evening, “I am monitoring the situation”.
A source said Charles, a brother to Henry Okah, one of the suspected leaders of Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta, MEND, who is currently in detention in South-Africa and also undergoing trial over the same offense, was locked in the cell with two others.
Charles is facing trial before a Federal High Court in Abuja, along with other suspects for the Abuja bombings. One of the suspects, Francis Osovwo, alias General Gbokos, had died, March 12, in Kuje Prisons, allegedly because of the chemical substance he inhaled during a fumigation of his cell.
Our source said that Charles was met “lying on the bare floor covered in dust and dirt” by a warder on night duty.
“His blood pressure was very low and his pulse non-existent. He was later stretchered out to the prisons’ clinic, where the prison staff tried to revive him.
“They failed in their attempt. He was later carried unconscious into an ambulance and conveyed to the National Hospital, Abuja”.
Speculations were rife as the cause of the seizure. Some said it was due to intense heat which he was subjected to in his solitary cell, while others said it was due to his strange neurological and medical condition.
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Oct 1 bombing suspect, Okah, collapses, unconscious