The Federal High Court in Abuja on Wednesday admitted the confessional statements of four defendants standing trial over the 5 June 2022 attack on St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, Owo, Ondo State.
Judge Emeka Nwite admitted the defendants’ statements after an SSS investigator, identified as SSJ, told the court he interviewed the defendants and recorded their statements in connection with the attack. The witness, the 10th to be presented by the prosecution, was identified by the codename as a witness protection measure.
|
|
The defendants’ lawyer had objected to the admissibility of the statements immediately the prosecution sought to tender them in evidence.
Mr Nwite rejected the defence request for a trial-within-trial, which is usually conducted to test the voluntariness of an extrajudicial statement of a defendant. The judge ruled that the statements were admissible.
|
|
|
|---|
“In view of the foregoing, I hold that the statement sought to be tendered is admissible. The objection of the defence is hereby overruled,” the judge held.
He admitted the statements of the first to the fourth defendants made on 18 August 2022 and marked them as Exhibits O, P, Q and R.
The four suspects whose statements were admitted are Idris Omeiza, 25; Al Qasim Idris, 20; Jamiu Abdulmalik, 26; and Abdulhaleem Idris, 25. Momoh Otuho Abubakar, 47 years, is the fifth defendant in the case.
On 5 June 2022, gunmen attacked the church during Pentecost Mass, killing more than 40 worshippers and injuring over 100 others.
On 11 August last year, the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation arraigned the five men on terrorism charges in connection with the incident.
Prosecutors alleged the defendants were members of an Al-Shabab cell operating in Kogi State and planned and carried out the attack as part of a violent religious agenda. So far, 10 prosecution witnesses have testified.
The ninth prosecution testified on Tuesday, narrating how the suspected terrorists planned the attack on the church.
On Wednesday, SSJ testified as the 10th prosecution witness, detailing how he obtained the statements of the defendants.
How SSS investigator obtained statements
Led in evidence by prosecution lawyer Ayodeji Adedipe, the SSS operative, SSJ, told the court that he is “the investigating officer saddled with the responsibility to interview the defendants and take their statements in relation to their involvement in the attack of June 2022 at St Francis Church in Owo, Ondo State.”
SSJ said he administered cautionary words before taking the statements of the first to fourth defendants individually.
“They informed me that they cannot write in English, even though they can speak English, though pidgin,” he said.
He added that he asked whether they had a lawyer, family member or any person who could serve as a witness.
“However, they responded in the negative. At this point, the Director of Legal Aid Council was invited to serve as a witness as I took voluntary confessional statements from the first to the fourth defendants,” he testified.
According to him, after taking the statements, a senior investigating officer, in the presence of the Legal Aid Council director, confirmed from each defendant whether the statements were theirs and made voluntarily.
“Then, each of the statements was read to them one after the other, as what they actually said orally, and they all answered in the affirmative.”
He said the defendants appended their signatures, dated and thumbprinted the statements voluntarily.
“Thereafter, I signed each of the statements they made. Then the senior investigating officer countersigned each of the statements, and the Director of Legal Aid Council signed as a witness to each of the confessional statements,” SSJ added.
The prosecution then tendered the four statements in evidence.
Objection overruled
Defence lawyer A.A. Muhammad objected to their admissibility. He argued that only two of the defendants could not write and alleged that the statements were taken in Akure, the Ondo State capital, under duress.
He contended that the documents were stamped at the SSS headquarters in Abuja without proper dates or visible thumbprints and alleged that the defendants were “tortured seriously” before the statements were recorded.
Mr Muhammad urged the court to order a trial-within-trial to determine how the statements were obtained.
In response, Mr Adedipe argued that the objection concerned authorship rather than voluntariness and that the law only requires a trial-within-trial where voluntariness is in issue.
After hearing the arguments, Mr Nwite explained: “A trial within a trial is conducted where the involuntariness of the making of a statement by an accused person is raised,” he said. “It arises only when the accused admits making the statement but alleges that it was not made voluntarily or was made under duress.”
“Where the issue is whether the statement was in fact made by the accused person, that is a question of fact,” he said. “Such denial does not affect the admissibility of the statement. The court is entitled to admit it and decide the weight to attach to it in its final judgment.”
After citing authorities, the judge rejected the defence objection.
“The objection by counsel for the defence is overruled,” he said, and admitted the statements.
He adjourned the matter until Thursday, 19 February, for the tendering of the fifth defendant’s statement and continuation of the trial and cross-examination of SSJ.
Defence questions how SSS linked attack to suspects
Earlier on Wednesday, defence lawyers cross-examined the SSS investigator who had testified the previous day about how the defendants allegedly planned the June 2022 attack.
Asked where the five defendants were arrested, the witness said officers apprehended them in August 2022 in Kogi and Ondo states. He could not recall how many arrests occurred in Kogi but said the fifth defendant, Momoh Otuho Abubakar, was likely arrested there. When pressed on the others, he replied they were arrested in either Kogi or Ondo State.”
The defence questioned him about Odoba, described as a principal suspect. The witness confirmed Odoba remained at large and clarified that he “usually hibernates and operates around Ogaminana,” adding that the SSS would arrest him if intelligence revealed his location. He rejected suggestions that the fifth defendant was not investigated, stating, “It was an oversight that I did not mention how he relates to the investigation.”
On alleged affiliations, the witness said the defendants belonged to “a cell of ISWAP that call themselves Al-Shabab,” which he said operates around the Niger-Kwara axis. He identified a gathering point as Imam Kabiru’s mosque and confirmed that Abdullahi and Mohammed, linked to the attack, were still at large.
Regarding weapons, he testified that Abdulhaleem Idris returned five AK-47 rifles, magazines and a rented vehicle to Odoba after the incident. He added that suspects often refuse to expose other members. The defendants, he said, have remained in custody since 2022.
The witness reiterated that investigators recovered a Nissan Sunny getaway vehicle and a motorcycle used for surveillance. Eyewitnesses identified four defendants at the church, while phone analysis placed them near the scene, though those records were not yet tendered.
He added that financial tracking targeted suspected terrorism funding and denied knowledge of any Fulani arrests.
On 5 June 2022, gunmen stormed the St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State, during Pentecost Mass, killing more than 40 worshippers and injuring over 100 others.
The attack occured amid worsening insecurity in different parts of the country. For over a decade the northeastern part of the country has been in the grip insurgency. Splinter groups of the terrorists and their cells are believed to have spread to the North West and North Central where armed criminals often referred to as bandits, who kidnap for ransom, also operate.
Kogi State in the North Central region shares borders with Ondo State in the South West where the June 2022 massacre occured. Observers believed the that the attack was a major sign pointing the gradual spread of the terrorist activities down south.
