The Abuja Division of the Federal High Court, Friday, held
that the alleged mastermind of the Christmas day bomb blast that killed about
44 persons and wounded 75 others at St. Theresa’s Catholic Church, Madalla,
Niger State, in 2011, Kabiru Umar, a.k.a Kabiru Sokoto, has a criminal case to
answer.
Dismissing a
no-case application that filed by the alleged kingpin of the Boko Haram sect,
Justice Adeniyi Ademola, also ordered him to produce his witnesses in court on
July 5, with a view to establishing his innocence to the terrorism charge
against him.
The judge said he
was satisfied that going by the totality of the proof of evidence before the
court, the government, had successfully established a criminal case which would
warrant further explanation by the accused person.
Sokoto who is answering a two-count charge against him by
the government had through his team of lawyers led by Mr. Hassan Lukman,
maintained that the government failed to establish a prima-facie case capable
of warranting his trial and conviction.
While praying the
court to discharge and acquit him, the accused person, Lukman contended that
none of the six witnesses that testified against him in court was able to
establish a nexus linking him to the alleged terrorist act.
Sokoto further
queried the propriety of allowing him to undergo trial “in view of the fact
that the prosecution has failed to tender any evidence connecting him to the
alleged offence.”
He was initially
docked before the High Court on May 20, 2013.
Aside allegations
that he trained over 500 men on how to manufacture and detonate Improvised
Explosive Devices, IEDs, the Federal Government, said that he had prior
knowledge that the sect planned to bomb the church on Christmas day but failed
to disclose it to any law enforcement officer as soon as reasonably practicable.
The said terrorists’ training camp was instituted at Abaji, a suburb of Abuja
He was said to have
between 2007 and 2012, at Mabira Sokoto, Sokoto State, facilitated the
commission of terrorist acts including planting bombs at the police
headquarters and some government organizations in the state.
Though he was
previously arrested by the police in Abuja on January 14, 2012, he was however
declared missing two days later. He was re-arrested on February 10, 2012.
His mysterious
escape from custody culminated to the sack of the erstwhile Inspector General
of Police, Mr. Hafiz Ringim and former Commission of Police in-charge of the
Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Zakari Biu. Biu was out rightly
dismissed from the Police Force.
The last
prosecution witness had told the court that Sokoto confessed that one of the
recognized leaders of the sect, Abubakar Shekau, told him that only members of
the sect that had been initiated into the “Shurah” cadre, were allowed to know
the ideology behind the current insurgency in the Northern parts of the
country.
The witness told
the court that Sokoto had further disclosed that whereas members of the
“Shurah” which he belongs to, plan and mastermind attacks, others were
recruited to execute terrorist agenda of the sect.
However, Sokoto,
through his lawyer, faulted the testimony of the masked witness, maintaining
that he used the Hausa word “Anche” in his statement, a word he said means
“they said.”
He told the court
that he was only referring to what he was told by those affiliated to the sect.
One of the
witnesses had earlier narrated before the court how a donation of N40million
divided the sect.
According to the
witness, Sokoto had in a statement he made on January 14, 2012, confessed that
out of the said N40million which he said was received from another terrorist
group in Algeria, he got N500, 000, being the recognized Governor of Sokoto
State in the hierarchy of the group.
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