Nigeria’s judicial system is so flawed, human right groups say, that police frequently take the law into their own hands, torturing and executing suspects without trial, particularly those suspected of armed robbery.

“People accused of heinous crimes like armed robbery, murder and rape can buy their freedom in court,” Shehu Sani, Director of the Civil Rights Congress, a coalition of human rights groups in northern Nigeria. “This frustrates the police who re-arrest these people and kill them,” he said.

“Others are killed because they might implicate some influential people while still others die as a result of torture to exert confessions,” Sani added.

The accusations come on the heels of an 18 November statement by Human Rights Watch (HRW) which said that the Nigerian police may have killed more than 10,000 people since 2000.

HRW called on the Nigerian government to launch an immediate inquiry into the killing in the last three months of 785 people suspected of armed robbery.

Nigerian police spokesman in the capital Abuja, Haz Iwendi, told IRIN that it will take time for the police to respond properly to the accusations as they are so serious. “We will carefully study all the accusations and verify them and respond appropriately,” he said.

The civil rights group’s Sani said he saw the police commit atrocities first-hand when he was jailed as a pro-democracy advocate under the military regime of Nigeria’s former military dictator, Sani Abacha. “I was witness to situations where suspects were removed [from cells] and either tortured or simply executed,” he said.

He said little has changed for suspected criminals in the eight years since the country returned to civilian rule. “The police usually take suspects to the outskirts of town, shoot them and then tell the media that they were killed in battles with the police or while trying to escape.”

Sani partly blames local human rights groups for not properly monitoring the abuses. “They are not very interested in rights violations at the local level but in rights violations at the political and elitist level,” Sani said.

He also said the families of alleged armed robbers and rapists often have little sympathy, Sani said. “This gives the police a blank check to treat the suspects the way they do.”

HRW also called on Nigeria’s police chief, Mike Okiro, to follow the lead of the Nigerian army who recently apologised for mass killings it committed in 2002 in Zaki Biam, in central Benue State.

But human rights advocate Sani said that the army massacre was a one-off while police killings occur daily. “Tendering an apology will not change anything,” he said. ”The best remedy is to re-orient the police through vigorous human rights education.”