DSS official to court: ‘How alleged terrorists’ negotiator, Mamu got N50million for his efforts’

Mamu

A Federal High Court in Abuja heard on Tuesday how alleged terrorists’ negotiator, Tukur Mohammed Mamu was offered N50million by the leader of a terrorists group for his efforts.

An official of the Department of State Services (DSS) stated this while testifying as the six prosecution witness in Mamu’s trial for terrorism related offences.

The witness said, “The second voice that played for five minutes is that of Shugaba, who is the leader of a terrorist group, who was appreciating the defendant’s efforts and asked him to remove N50m for his personal use from a particular ransom amount he was to deliver to them (the terrorists).”

The DSS official identified Shugaba’s voice among others audio conversations, he said were extracted from Mamu’s mobile telephones during interrogation after he was arrested in Egypt and brought back to Nigeria.

Mamu was arrested on September 7, 2022 by Egyptian security officials at the Cairo International Airport, on reasonable suspicion of financing Boko Haram terrorism activities.

He was alleged to have convinced the terrorists to discuss ransom payments with individual families of the hostages of the train attack instead of the Chief of Defense Staff Committee set up by the Federal Government for his personal financial gain. He was said to have been nominated by the terrorists that attacked the Abuja-Kaduna bound train sometime in March 2022 which took scores of persons hostage.

Mamu was alleged to have collected ransoms on behalf of the Boko Haram terrorists from families of hostages, confirmed the amount and facilitated the delivery of same to the terrorists.

Led in evidence on Tuesday by prosecuting lawyer, David Kaswe, the DSS official told the court that, after Mamu was brought back from Egypt, he submitted his Samsung tablet and two phones to DSS’ officials.

The witness, who said he was part of those who investigated the case, told the court that when the defendant was intercepted in Egypt, he put a call to his in-law, identified as Mubarak Tinja and directed him to move out all his valuables, comprising of cash, cars and other items of values, from his house to a safe location, to avoid detection by security agents.