Kabiru Sokoto, who is standing trial for the 2011 Christmas
Day bombing of St. Theresa’s Catholic Church, Madalla, Niger State,
yesterday opened up in court, explaining how they carried out the
attack.
multilifa
Sokoto was arraigned for terrorism at the Federal High Court, Maitama in Abuja.
The
Boko Haram leader and mastermind of the church’s bombing, who since his
arraignment, had denied involvement or knowledge of the deadly attack,
suddenly opened up yesterday on how they plotted and killed over 40
worshippers on December 25, 2011 at about 8.00am. Sokoto dismissed
claims that the attack on the church was carried out by a suicide
bomber.
Another bombshell by Sokoto is the financial link Boko
Haram had with Algeria and how a group which is the sect’s financial
backbone had been instrumental to their means of fund raising to carry
out deadly attacks. The sharing of funds by the members of the Islamist
sect, he said, led to the major crack in Boko Haram.
On the
church bombing, Sokoto told the court that the incident was a
coordinated attack that was executed by two persons- Bashir Mohammed and
Mukthar Kafanchan under the supervision of Sulieman Habib, who is the
commander of Boko Haram in Niger State.
Giving further insight
into how the attack was carried out, he said: “It was not a suicide
bomber as many believed. It was a coordinated attack. The car that was
used for the operation was parked near the church, laden with explosives
and later detonated by the people assigned for the job,” he told the
court.
On the Algerian sponsors, he said an Algerian group,
Muslimiyama, which means ‘the group from the sunset,’ frequently sent
money to them. He noted that it was the sharing of N40million sent by
the group that split the sect into two factions.
“There is a
group in Algeria, Muslimiyama, meaning ‘the group from the sunset’,
which normally sends money to us. And it was because of the sharing of
N40million they sent to us that our sect split into two.
I was
given N500,000 out of the money which I used to buy Koran and other
books.” However, contrary to reports, Sokoto said the Presidential
Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of Security Challenges had
never met with him
No comments:
Post a Comment