Abuja court decides Boko Bomber Sokoto’s fate Friday

A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja yesterday fixed June 21, this year to rule on a request by suspected mastermind of the 2011 Christmas Day bombing of St Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla, Niger State, Mr. Kabiru Sokoto, seeking an order nullifying the charge against him for want of evidence. The trial high court judge, Justice Adeniyi Ademola, fixed the date yesterday after parties adopted their briefs of arguments on the application.

The decision of the court would either terminate the case or compel Sokoto to open his defence in the matter. Sokoto had invited the court to dismiss the charge preferred against him by the federal government for two reasons.

First, he had told the court that the proof of evidence before the court did not link him to the crimes alleged against him and secondly, that the evidence so far led by the prosecution was not only empty but also did not establish any offence against him.

The position was contained in the written brief prepared and filed by Sokoto’s team of lawyers in court. In the brief of argument by Sokoto, he said he was, for instance, accused of “facilitating the commission of terrorist act by planting and encouraging some boys (now at large) at Mabira Sokoto, in Sokoto State with the intention to bomb the police headquarters and some other government agencies in the state,” but that the federal government failed to bring any of the boys he allegely planted and encouraged to testify against him.

He said rather than bringing the boys whom the operatives of the State Security Service claimed gave them information about how he encouraged them to bomb police headquarters and other government agencies in Sokoto, the government brought operatives of the SSS who came to court to give hear-say evidence which he claimed had no probative value.

Besides, he told the court that the prosecution also woefully failed to lead evidence to establish how he facilitated the commission of terrorist act.

Sokoto further argued in his brief that he was also accused to have withheld information about the plan to bomb St.Theresa’s Catholic Church, Madalla, Niger State from law enforcement officer when the prosecution also failed to establish at what point he got hold of such information and at what point it became an offence for him not to have disclosed.