(UVS = Unabhängige Verwaltungssenat/Independent Administrative Council)

Two years and nine months after the death of Nigerian deportee Marcus Omofuma the first official decision has been made public – the tape gagging and binding of the prisoner carried out by the alien police was “unlawful”. This decision was reached by the Unabhängige Verwaltungssenat/Independent Administrative Council in Vienna.

The Viennese lawyer Georg Zanger brought the case in the name Marcus Omofuma’s surviving dependents before the UVS/IAC which was asked to consider whether Omofuma had died as a result of a breach of his human rights. In the first instance the IAC decided that only the party affected could initiate such a case. However the Constitutional Court decided that Omofuma’s relatives were parties and that the IAC must consider the case on its merits.

The decision states that all use of forceful measures was unlawful. Omofuma was bound and gagged because he resisted deportation. In the aeroplane the three policemen taped his mouth shut. Before the plane reached a stopover in Sofia Omofuma had suffocated. The trial of the police officers begins on the 4th of March in the District Court of Korneuburg. The charge is torture of a prisoner leading to death. Maximum sentence: 10 years.