Row over prosecution of Nyanya blast mastermind, Aminu Ogwuche

The inability of the Ministry of Justice, the Police and Department of State Service (DSS) to agree on which agency should prosecute the suspected mastermind of the April 14 bomb blast in Nyanya, Abuja, Aminu Ogwuche, stalled his arraignment on Friday.

Ogwuche has been in the DSS custody since his extradition from Sudan over a month ago. However, confusion arose in court on Friday between the police and State Security Service (SSS) over which of the two agencies should prosecute the suspected bomb blast mastermind who had subsequently fled to Sudan.

According to the Nation, the police, who filed the charges, could not produce Ogwuche and his co-accused because the suspects were held by the DSS. DSS lawyer  Cliff Osagie, urged the police to withdraw the initial charges against the accused to enable the DSS complete its investigation.

“I expect them (the police) to have withdrawn the charges to enable us (DSS) complete our investigation, and hand, over the case to the attorney-general of the federation, who is empowered to prosecute cases such as this,” he said.

Osagie said after the accused was extradited from Sudan, the DSS on September 11 obtained an order from Justice Gabriel Kolawole, to keep the accused in custody for 90 days “in the first instance.”
Counsel to the police, Oloye Torugbene, said he would not withdraw the charges, as he was not instructed to do so. The charges were filed by the police to facilitate Ogwuche’s extradition from Sudan, where he allegedly escaped to after the incident. Justice Ademola held that the police had not presented the documents to show investigations had been completed.

The judge, who expressed surprise about the lack of “collaboration” between the two security agencies, asked them to sort out the issues and agree on a date. He adjourned the case till November 10.

Over 100 persons died in the blast, which was said to have been masterminded by the accused.
Ogwuche and others were reportedly arrested in Sudan with the assistance of the Interpol. In one of the three counts, Ogwuche was alleged to have conspired with others (at large), to commit terrorism by detonating improvised explosive devices at the Nyanya terminus, which resulted in the death of 75 persons. Over 100 were injured.

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