Boko Haram militants (in camouflage) embrace and shake hands with Boko Haram prisoners, released in exchange for a group of 82 Chibok girls, who were held captive for three years by Islamist militants, near Kumshe, Nigeria, May 6, 2017. Source/VoA
Nigeria Frees 475 Boko Haram terrorists for rehabilitation
Nigeria’s Ministry of Justice, Sunday, said a Nigerian court ordered the release of 475 people allegedly affiliated with Boko Haram for rehabilitation.
This is being revealed as the country’s biggest legal investigation of the militant Islamist insurgency continues.
The first person convicted for the kidnapping in 2014 of Chibok schoolgirls, sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment last week, was also handed an additional 15-year sentence, to run back-to-back, the justice ministry said in a statement.
Abba Umar, 22, was jailed for 60 years on Tuesday.
The justice ministry, in an emailed statement, called him an “unremorseful sect commander” who “remained adamant to his ideology despite all the efforts by the defense counsel to convince him to have a change of heart.”
Suspects have appeared in open court after rights groups criticized the use of secret trials in October.
Last year the ministry of justice said 45 people with Boko Haram links had been convicted and jailed. A further 468 suspects were discharged and 28 remanded for trial.
More than 20,000 people have been killed and two million forced to flee their homes in northeastern Nigeria since Boko Haram began an insurgency in 2009 aimed at creating an Islamic state.
But humanitarian groups have criticized the Nigerian authorities’ handling of those detained for infringing on the suspects’ rights.
Some of those whose cases were heard last week in a detention center in central Nigeria had been held without trial since 2010, according to the justice ministry statement.
“The prosecution counsel could not charge them [with] any offence due to lack of sufficient evidence against them,” the ministry said.
In October, the ministry said 45 people suspected of Boko Haram links had been convicted and jailed. A further 468 suspects were discharged and 28 suspects were remanded for trial in Abuja or Minna.