by Chi Ibe

Nuraini Suleiman, counsel on behalf of the suspected Boko Haram members told a Federal High Court in Abuja that there were no evidence  to link the accused persons to the alleged offences.

On Wednesday, February 6, Suleiman held that the evidence presented by the prosecution against the accused was a gossip.

Six suspected Boko Haram members, Shuaibu Abubakar, Salisu Ahmed, Umar Babagana-Umar, Mohammed Ali, Musa Adam and Umar Ibrahim were accused of carrying out multiple bomb attacks killing people in parts of the Federal Capital Territory and Suleja, Niger State in 2011 but the counsel insisted that the Federal Government had no case against them.

The State Security Service maintained that its investigations revealed that the accused persons participated in various terror attacks between March and July, 2011.

However, at the trial on Wednesday, counsel for the suspected Boko Haram members, Suleiman and Kevin Emeka Okoro, wrote the  addresses in an application for a ‘no-case submission,’ argued that the “prosecution failed to establish a prima facie case against the accused persons.”

The Punch reports:

Second prosecuting counsel, Thompson Olatigbe, argued that the Federal Government had succeeded in establishing a prima facie case against the accused persons.

 Olatigbe added that none of the evidence tendered by the prosecution was discredited during cross examination.

He insisted that all of the evidence placed before the court were reliable enough for a safe conviction of the accused persons.

Olatigbe therefore urged the court to rule in favour of the prosecution and call on the accused persons to enter their defense.

The presiding judge, Justice Bilikisu Aliyu, thereafter, fixed February 11, 2013, to rule on the no-case submission.

It will be recalled that, on January 9, 2013, the last prosecution witness, Mr. Olaoye Obafemi Kehinde, an SSS exhibit keeper, tendered a black Honda Civic car, with number plate AG94MNG, Borno, as exhibit before the court.

The said Honda Civic was the vehicle in which some of the suspects were travelling when they were arrested at an army checkpoint at Gummel Junction at Kachia, Kaduna, on July 27, 2011.

The prosecution alleged that the suspects were carrying explosives, and materials used in manufacturing improvised explosive devices, including cortex wires and industrial powder, in the vehicle, when they were arrested.