Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation has taken over from the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, the prosecution of the alleged Taraba State kidnapping kingpin, Bala Hamisu, also known as Wadume, along with 19 others.
Nigeria’s IGP had on February 3, 2020, slammed 16 counts of terrorism, murder, kidnapping, and illegal arms running against the 20 defendants, among whom are two police officers and 10 soldiers.
Only six of the 20 defendants, including Wadume, were present in court when the case came up for hearing on Wednesday.
The 10 soldiers among the defendants were absent on Wednesday, a repeat of the scenario when the case was first mentioned in court on March 16, 2020.
Simon Lough, counsel who was then prosecuting the case on IGP’s behalf, had informed the judge, Justice Binta Nyako, at the March 16 proceedings that the Army had rebuffed repeated requests to release the soldiers for arraignment.
This prompted the judge to order the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai, to release the 10 defendants to the police.
Meanwhile, the prosecuting counsel from the AGF office, Labaran Magaji, who appeared in the case for the first time on Wednesday, told Justice Nyako that his office took over the case and received the case file from the police on Tuesday.
He requested an adjournment to enable him to make moves for the production of all the defendants in court.
Magaji said, “The AGF office applied to take over the prosecution of the criminal charge. We were handed over the file yesterday(Tuesday). The case has about 20 defendants, but only six defendants are present in court.