How phone call analysis exposed Owo church attackers – SSS witness

The witness stated that SSS had sufficient technical evidence to show the location of the defendants during the attack on the Owo church in June 2022.

A State Security Service (SSS) agent told the Federal High Court in Abuja on Wednesday how phone call analysis placed four defendants, allegedly involved in the June 2022 terror attack on a Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State, at the crime scene.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports at least 40 persons died and over 100 others sustained injuries at the end of the attack on St. Francis Catholic Church, Owo in Ondo State on 5 June 2022.

The witness made the disclosure while giving his evidence as the 10th prosecution witness before trial judge Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court in Abuja.

The witness, identified as SSJ under a judge-approved witness protection arrangement, told the court that phone calls made by the defendants about the time of the attack, put them in the vicinity of the church where the attack took place..

The defendants are Idris Abdulmalik Omeiza (25 years), Al Qasim Idris (20 years), Jamiu Abdulmalik (26 years), Abdulhaleem Idris (25 years) and Momoh Otuho Abubakar (47 years).

He said SSS had sufficient technical evidence to show that the first to the fourth defendants were around the church premises during the attack.

The SSS agent explained that the technical evidence showed that their phones and conversations were around the telecommunications cell site location around the attack.

Confessional statements

Besides the phone records’ analysis conducted by the SSS, the witness said the defendants voluntarily made confessional statements linking them to the attack.

He said the statement-taking session was witnessed by the Director of the Legal Aid Council of Nigeria when the defendants said they could not afford to have either their lawyers or family members around to witness the session.

He identified the five defendants and detailed how he obtained the confessional statements from the first four. He said the defendants offered the statements voluntarily.

The defence lawyer, Abdullahi Muhammad, raised an objection to the admissibility of the defendants’ statements. But the judge overruled the objection.

PREMIUM TIMES reported earlier on Wednesday that the judge admitted the confessional statements as exhibits after overruling the objection.

The judge, Emeka Nwite, in a ruling, also rejected Mr Muhammad’s request that the court order the conduct of a trial-within-trial to resolve all the doubts about whether or not the defendants made the statements.

Mr Nwite upheld the submission by prosecuting lawyer, Ayodeji Adedipe, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), that a trial-within-trial could only be ordered where the issue is about the voluntariness of the statement and not where a defendant denies making the statement, as it is in the case.

Further findings

Testifying earlier during cross examination by Mr Muhammad, the ninth prosecution witness, SSI, insisted that the defendants were involved in the attack and gave further details of what the investigation conducted on the case by the SSS revealed.

SSI, who earlier told the court on Tuesday that he led the investigation team, restated on Wednesday that the defendants were arrested in August 2022, in both Kogi and Ondo states, while they were interview in Abuja.

He confirmed that all defendants are members of ISWAP, who belong to the a cell operating as Al Shabab.

He stated that there is also a Mahmuda group of ISWAP in the area.

The witness told the court that after the attack, the fourth defendant returned the weapons used for the attack to Odoba and also returned the car to where he rented it from.

SSI confirmed that the case was thoroughly investigated and that evidence that indicted the defendants were duely obtained.

The witness confirmed that the defendants used two vehicles during the attack, adding that while they drove in a rented vehicle to the church, they snatched another vehicle from a worshipper, who was returning from church service, which they used as a get away vehicle.

He further confirmed that defendants had a meeting at Govt Secondary School Ogaminana where one Odoba gave the instruction to the 2nd defendant for the attack.

The meeting, the witness said, preceded two other meetings they held on June 3 and 4, 2022, before the attack.

SSI confirmed that the defendants used both explosives and several rounds of ammunition during the attack.

He insisted that no other persons outside the defendants were arrested by the DSS in respect of this case.

Justice Nwite fixed the matter until Feb. 19 at 12 noon for continuation of trial.

(NAN)