‎The trial of the Ansaru leaders, Mahmud Usman and Abubakar Abba, on terrorism charges, has been fixed for November 19 by the Federal High Court in Abuja.
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‎The trial scheduled to hold October 21 was shifted to November 19 by Justice Emeka Nwite, following the absence of Counsel to DSS, Mohammed Abubakar.
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‎The lawyer had in a letter to the registrar of the court apologised for his inability to be in court and sought an adjournment to enable him to be present to conduct the trial.
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‎Following no objection to the request, Justice Nwite subsequently fixed November 19 for the trial of the two defendants.
During the last proceedings, the court sentenced one of the two defendants, Mahmud Muhammed Usman, a.k.a Abu Bara’a, to 15 imprisonment years for illegal mining.
Usman who hails from Okene local government area of Kogi State and Abubakar Abba a.k.a Isah Adam or Mahmud Al-Nigeri, who hails from Daura, Katsina State, were arraigned by the DSS on 32 counts of terrorism and related offences.
Of the 32 counts, Usman, who was the first defendant, had pleaded guilty to Count 10, which was on illegal mining. The presiding judge, Justice Emeka Nwite,m consequently convicted him of the crime and sentenced him to 15 years in prison.
The second suspected Ansaru Commander, Abubakar Abba, who was arraigned alongside the convict, however, denied the economic sabotage offence.
Usman and Abubakar Abba were put on trial on terrorism charges by the DSS, but Usman pleaded guilty to count 10 in the 32 count charges which bothered on economic crime.
While Abubakar Abba pleaded not guilty to the 32 count charges on terorism offences, Usman denied 31 counts.
At the arraignment proceedings, the Director of Public Prosecution of the Federation, Mohammed Babadoko Abubakar, alleged in the charges that the two defendants committed the crime between 2015 and 2024.
Among others, they were accused of bombing Wawa Military Cantonment in Borgu local government area of Niger State, receiving training in weapon handling and fabrication of improvised explosive devices.
The security agency alleged that they belonged to foreign terror groups, engaged terrorism financing, kidnapping and receiving training on war tactics from a terrorist organisation in Mali.
In other charges, DSS accused them of kidnapping a Custom officer and another Immigration Officer who was killed while in their custody.
The Secret Police claimed that the accused persons collected ransom running into millions of naira from families of their victims before the long arms of the DSS captured them.