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A Lagos High Court sentences Hamza al-Mustapha to death by hanging but his lawyers have appealed the judgement

The verdict of the 14-year long trial of Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, former chief security officer, CSO, to the late General Sani Abacha could not have been more shocking to his friends and family members. On January 30, a number of them had trooped to the Lagos State High Court at Igbosere to celebrate what they thought would be the end of his long detention at the Kirikiri Maximum Prison. But as it turned out, Justice Mojisola Dada ruled otherwise. She convicted and sentenced the former CSO and Lateef Shofolahan to death by hanging for the murder of Kudirat Abiola, wife of MKO Abiola, winner of June 12, 1993 election.

The ruling left Al-Mustapha’s friends and well wishers such as John Fashanu, former Wimbledon of England football legend in shock. Fashanu had hoped that the former security chief to Abacha would be asked to go home. Before the ruling began which eventually lasted for seven hours, he told Newswatch that Al-Mustapha was a brilliant soldier. He recalled how the late Muammar Gaddafi, former Libyan leader, once said the same about  Al-Mustapha when he{Gadafi}said the former CSO was one of the finest officers he had ever come across. “You know this is not easy to come out of Gaddafi,” Fashanu said, adding “it is an irony that such a man who holds the key to our security problem is kept in a box.”

Other friends of Al-Mustapha at the court who also hoped for a happy ending in the trial but were disappointed by the outcome included Fanny Amun, former Under-17 coach, and Fredrick Fasehun, leader of the Odua People’s Congress, OPC. The two men had followed the case closely and never missed any court sitting since the trial commenced. Fasehun, who was visibly shocked by the flow of the ruling, quickly left the court room before judgement was pronounced. He, however, returned to assure the CSO that victory was only postponed.

 Al-Mustapha has been standing trial for the murder of Kudirat since October 1999. He was initially arraigned along with four suspects. They are Shofolahan, Rabo Lawal, Aminu Lawal and Mohammed Abacha. After many rounds of legal battle and power play, the other accused persons managed to extricate themselves from the charge, leaving Al-Mustapha and Shofolahan in the case. Al-Mustapha was also arraigned in another separate court over the attempted murder of Alex Ibru, publisher of The Guardian newspapers and the burning of Rutam House. After many years of legal battle, the former CSO won the case both at the High Court and Appeal Court level. But the case of Kudirat remained his albatross.

In reaching the decision to convict Al-Mustapha for the murder of Kudirat, the trial judge noted that four witnesses testified for the prosecution. They are Ore Falomo, a doctor and personal physician to the late Abiola, Barnabas Jabila, also known as Sgt Rogers, Mohammed Abdul, popularly called Katako and Yusuf Fari, a retired police officer.

Falomo had testified that on June 4, when he got information that Kudirat was shot in the head, he and other neuro surgeons made frantic efforts to save her life. The bullet they recovered after the surgery was white, with special markings. By what he saw, Falomo concluded that the dastardly act could only have been committed by a fifth columnist in government. He added that as against the standard, the police also took the bullet and never returned it to the Abiola family.

The most controversial of all the testimonies in the trial was that of Sgt Rogers. Rogers’ which was earlier discarded by Justice Muftau Olokoba in the case of Alex Ibru. The judge had ruled that his testimony contained significant inconsistencies and could not be relied on for adjudication.  

In the trial of Kudirat, Rogers again appeared in late 2009, with a Holy Bible under his armpit and affirmed to the court that he was now a born again Christian. In his evidence in chief which he promised to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth before Justice Dada, Rogers admitted that Al-Mustapha arranged for logistics for the killing of Kudirat. But under cross-examination, Rogers, who initially held to his earlier claim of being the killer, later broke down in tears and begged Al-Mustapha for forgiveness. Rogers said he was coached by the Special Investigation Panel, SIP, to lie against Al-Mustapha and the other defendants.

Katako, former driver to Mohammed Abacha, also testified that he was the driver of the vehicle which was used to commit the dastardly act. But midway in his testimony, Katako also made a 360 degree turn and said he was promised a percentage of the Abacha’s loot if he co-operated. For Al-Mustapha and Shofolahan, it was their statements before the SIP that were used for the trial. The statements were confessional in nature. Despite efforts to disown those statements because they were products of both psychological and physical torture, the court still admitted them in evidence. Shofolahan had even said the only truth in the entire statement credited to him were his date of birth and home address.

In her ruling, Justice Dada said Shofolahan claims of never working for the late Kudirat was unproven. She insisted that Shofolahan had worked as protocol officer for Hope 93, Abiola’s campaign organisation, and later moved to the house of Kudirat where he served in the same capacity. For Al-Mustapha, she said his statement tagged exhibit D15 was self- serving. Al-Mustapha had said he could never have given Rogers a rifle because under military procedure, irrespective of position, everybody followed the same means of signing for weapons and becomes married to it. 

But the judge said the contradictions in the statements of Rogers and Katako were not weighty enough to discredit the overall evidence.    

The judgement of Dada elicited mixed reactions from Nigerians. Shetima Yerima, president, Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, AYCF, said the judgement was biased and thus not acceptable. Balarabe Musa, former governor of Kaduna State, shared the same view. For Dokubo Asari, the death sentence on Al-Mustapha is the highest form of injustice. “This man is innocent. I wrote on my facebook how people were murdered by their own people and they turned it on Abacha and his people,” Asari said. Hadi Al-Mustapha, younger brother to Hamza Al-mustapha, also wondered how the judge arrived at the judgement. “The strength of evidence relies upon by the learned judge for the conviction was contradictory to subsisting judgement on the same case,” Hadi said.

 Ayo Opadokun, secretary of the National Democratic Coalition, NADECO, commended the judge for her sagacity, erudition and sound legal outcome of the case. He shares this view with Joe-Okei Odumakin, president of Women Arise. She said the judgement was a vindication of steadfastness of the judiciary. Hafsat Abiola Costello, daughter of Kudirat, said the verdict has restored her faith in the country’s judicial system.  But al-Mustapha’s lawyers have already appealed the judgement.