Falana demands prosecution of terrorism financiers, insurgents after Kuje attack

Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, on Sunday questioned the Federal Government’s refusal to prosecute suspected terrorists and their financiers.

The lawyer was reacting to last Tuesday’s attack on the Kuje correctional centre in Abuja by members of the Islamic State for West African Province (ISWAP) which set free hundreds of inmates, including suspected terrorists, detained in the facility.

The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, had in September last year said the federal government had identified and detained high profile individuals responsible for funding of terrorism in the country.

He, however, defended the delay in the prosecution of the suspects, saying the federal government was determined to take stringent measures to counter insurgency in the country.

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In a statement he personally signed, Falana asked the AGF to file charges financiers of terrorism and the terrorists themselves, adding that the National Assembly should monitor the prosecution.

The statement read: “We are compelled to call on the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), to ensure that the indicted sponsors of terrorism and terror suspects are charged before the Federal High Court.

“Since only 64 terror suspects are detained in Kuje correctional centre, the AGF should disclose to Nigerians where the 400 sponsors of terrorism and the 800 terror suspects who were due to be arraigned in the Federal High Court last year are being detained.

“We also call on the members of the National Assembly who have been appropriating funds for the prosecution of terror suspects to monitor the prosecution of the indicted terror suspects.”

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