Story highlights Attorney for family: "They have hid this from us for five months"

The coroner says the 21-year-old's death was homicide, result of "blunt force trauma"

Matthew Ajibade broke female sergeant's nose while being restrained after arrest, police say

(CNN) The death of a 21-year-old Nigerian student in an isolation jail cell in Savannah, Georgia, on New Year's Day has been ruled a homicide, Chatham County coroner William Wessinger said Thursday.

Matthew Ajibade's cause of death "is listed as blunt force trauma, which was really a combination of several things that were enumerated in his autopsy report by the GBI," the coroner said, citing "abrasions, lacerations, skin injuries about the head and some other areas of the body. There was some small amount of blood inside the skull case."

Wessinger stressed that homicide means only that another person was involved. It is not tantamount to murder, though it includes murder, he said.

Nine Chatham County deputies were fired in connection with Ajibade's death last month, said Gena Bilbo, spokeswoman for the Chatham County Sheriff's Office. Cpl. Maxine Evans and Cpl. Jason Kenny, two of those nine deputies had been on paid leave for "inappropriate actions" in the case, Bilbo said.

Cpl. Maxine Evans

Authorities provided no further details into the deputies' conduct at the time.

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