A Federal High Court sitting in Kainji, Niger State on Friday, October 13, 2017 has sentenced 45 Boko Haram members to between 3 and 31 years in jail, and also freed 468 suspects.
The jailed men were among the 575 Boko Haram suspects arraigned under the first phase of the mass trial of the suspects.
Lai Mohammed, Nigeria’s information minister, in an e-mailed statement to The Trent on Friday, said the Kainji court also struck out 34 cases while 28 suspects were remanded for trial in Abuja and Minna.
The court ordered that the 468 discharged persons should undergo deradicalization and rehabilitation programmes before they are handed over to their respective state governments.
The trial commenced with the formal remand by the Court of 1,669 suspects for a period of 90 days, with the Court ordering that they be arraigned within the specified period or released unconditionally.
The Court adjourned the trial of other suspects to January 2018.
Buhari Defeats Boko Haram?
Late December 2016, President Muhammadu Buhari declared victory over the Islamist terrorist group after Nigerian troops announced that they haave recaptured Camp Zero in Sambisa forest, the base of the deadliest terrorist group in the world.
The Nigerian Army later presented the president with the flag belonging to the terrorist group in a “mission accomplished” ceremony.
Since the declaration a week ahead of Christmas Day 2016, Boko Haram has launched a number of deadly attacks in the North Eastern region of the country where the terrorists have murdered at least 50,000 since they began their campaign to establish an Islamic caliphate in the country.
