Nigerian bandit Lawrence Anini was executed on this date in 1987.
Strongman of a well-armed gang whose robberies and hijackings terrorized Benin Cty, Anini in 1986 fell out with his erstwhile police protectors, resulting in a bloody war of assassinations that claimed nine policemen’s lives and god knows how many gangsters. It also made Anini Nigeria’s public enemy number one.
He was wheelchair-bound throughout his high-profile trial, owing to having a leg amputated after it was badly shot up in the course of his December 1986 arrest. This fact earned the man once chillingly nicknamed “The Law” no sympathy at all, although he did also implicate a number of corrupt cops, drawing several convictions.
He was shot along with a number of his confederates on March 29, 1987.
On this day..
- 1623: Reinier van Oldenbarnevelt, family tradition
- 1825: El Pirata Cofresi
- 1929: Luther Baker, moonshine bootlegger
- 1560: Baron de Castelnau, for the Amboise Conspiracy
- 4 BCE: Antipater, disinherited Herodian
- 1875: Richard Coates, gunner and rapist
- Daily Double: Victorian Soldiery
- 1944: Roger Bushell and others for the Great Escape
- 1946: Laszlo Baky and Laszlo Endre, Hungarian Holocaust authors
- 1946: Phillip and William Heincy, father and son
- 1935: Thomasina Sarao, miscalculated
- 1796: Francois de Charette, Vendee rebel
- 1720: Charles Vane, an unsinkable pirate