Court Hears More Sordid Facts On Abacha Hit-squad
Court Hears More Sordid Facts On Abacha Hit-squad
May 12, 2000
Paul Ejime
PANA Correspondent
LAGOS, Nigeria (PANA) - Former Nigerian army sergeant Barnabas Jabila, alias Rogers, a confessed hitman of late military ruler Gen. Sani Abacha, admitted in Lagos Thursday that he obeyed orders from above to carry out sordid atrocities, including the 1996 murder of Kudirat Abiola, wife of presidential claimant Moshood Abiola.
Testifying under cross-examination in a landmark murder trial, Jabila told a packed Lagos High Court that: "Yes, I used Uzzi (Israeli-made) riffle in shooting Kudirat."
Kudirat, who had continued pro-democracy activism after Abacha jailed her husband for proclaiming himself president in 1994, was shot point blank, while driving on a Lagos street 4 June 1996.
She was confirmed dead shortly afterwards at a nearby Lagos hospital.
Jabila gave these details when giving evidence in the attempted murder trial of Alex Ibru, publisher of the Lagos Guardian newspapers, which had also served as interior minister under Abacha.
Jabila had earlier told the presiding judge that he fired at Ibru on 2 February 1996, using a Russian-made AK-47 assault rifle.
Abacha's chief security officer Major Hamza al- Mustapha, a former Lagos state police commissioner James Danbaba and Nigeria's former army chief, are among the five people facing trial in the Ibru case.
Also named in the Kudirat murder case are Mustapha and Abacha's son, Mohammed.
But, in his testimony, Jabila as the chief witness in both cases, said that he and other members of the hit squad took orders from AL-Mustapha for their activities.
He said that, in the military, a junior couldn't disobey an order, no matter how unlawful.
The presiding judge adjourned hearing of the case until 19 May.
The trials have helped to reveal a series of the misdeeds of Abacha's reign, including the stashing of an estimated two billion US dollars of stolen public funds.
Part of the money has been traced and blocked in foreign banks by authorities in Switzerland and Luxembourg.
This is in addition to hundreds of millions of dollars recovered from the Abacha family and officials of his regime.
The government of President Olusegun Obasanjo has set itself an ambitious task in tracing and repatriating the huge sums illegally stashed away in foreign banks.
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