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General News of Thursday, 5 August 2021

Source: punchng.com

Police panel grills Kyari, embattled cop deletes Facebook post

Abba Kyari Abba Kyari

A former Head of the Intelligence Response Team, Abba Kyari, appeared on Wednesday, before the Special Investigation Panel sitting at the Force Headquarters, Abuja, for the second time in 24 hours.

The SIP, headed by the Deputy Inspector-General of Police in charge of the Force Criminal Investigations Department, Joseph Egbunike, reportedly grilled Kyari, a Deputy Commissioner of Police, for about two hours.

Kyari is under investigation for alleged involvement in a $1.1 million Internet fraud perpetrated by a suspect, Abbas Ramon, alias Hushpuppi.

Our correspondent learnt that the SIP sat for about two hours and ended the Wednesday session around 2 pm.

Kyari was said to have denied receiving money from Hushpuppi to detain Vincent Chibuzor for one month as alleged in the official indictment filed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation at a court in California.

Findings indicate that the SIP would sit daily for two weeks when it is expected to round off its investigation.

Apart from Egbunike, other members of the panel include the Assistant Inspector-General in charge of Border Patrol, Usman Nagogo, CSP A. Idris, who is the panel secretary and one other officer.

Meanwhile, Kyari further stirred controversy on Wednesday when he deleted a post on Facebook in which he defended the allegations levelled against him by the FBI.

Before deleting the post, the DCP had edited the post to read that he arrested Chibuzor at the behest of Hushpuppi, who claimed the young man threatened to kill his family.

According to him, it was later discovered that such wasn’t the case, adding that “they are long-time friends who have money issues between them hence we released the suspect on bail.”

Kyari, while denying that he received money from Hushpuppi, said his office helped the Instagram influencer to recover N8m for a friend.