A Nigerian court has rejected a bid by a former security chief to stop his trial for the attempted murder of a newspaper publisher and former minister in 1996, court officials said on Thursday.
Major Hamzat al-Mustapha, who was the late dictator Sani Abacha’s security chief, has been standing trial with four others since October 1999 for allegedly attempting to kill former internal affairs minister Alex Ibru.
The trial, which has been adjourned several times, has made little progress because of legal technicalities raised by the defence.
In July this year, al-Mustapha’s lawyer, Olalekan Ojo, asked the Lagos High Court to restrain leading state prosecutor Yemi Osibajo from handling the case, alleging bias.
”The application is incompetent and cannot be maintained by law and accordingly struck out,” presiding Judge Joseph Oyewole said in his ruling on Wednesday.
He said that granting the request would amount to a violation of the principle of separation of powers. Osibajo is Lagos state attorney general and commissioner of justice.
Oyewole then adjourned the trial to November 30 this year.
The former security officer and other Abacha cronies are standing trial in several courts for a series of state-sponsored murders during the 1993-1998 regime of Abacha, who died suddenly in June 1998.
Al-Mustapha and three other suspects are also on trial over a plot to shoot down President Olusegun Obasanjo’s helicopter and topple his government.
They appeared in court last month, pleading not guilty to charges of treason and conspiring to overthrow the government. — Sapa-AFP