Lagos (AFP) – An appeal court judge in Nigeria’s financial capital, Lagos, has upheld 25-year jail terms imposed on three men found guilty at a secret trial of terror charges linked to Boko Haram.
The Lagos State government said in a statement Sunday that judge Ibrahim Buba at the Court of Appeal last Friday “affirmed the judgement” of the Federal High Court in September 2014.
The trio were found guilty of conspiracy, acts of terrorism, concealing information and possession of firearms and ammunition, it added.
Charges were dropped against 13 others while a fourth defendant was acquitted on the grounds of lack of evidence.
The state justice commissioner at the time said the 17 suspects were arrested in the Lekki and Ijora suburbs of Lagos and found with improvised explosives, firearms and ammunition.
The explosives were “fully primed and ready to be deployed”, Ade Ipaye told reporters.
The original trial was held behind closed doors on the grounds of national security, he added, but human rights groups raised concerns about transparency, due process and a fair trial.
The men were charged in March 2013 with conspiracy, acts of terrorism, concealing information and possession of firearms and ammunition.
The three defendants — identified by the state government as Ali Mohammed Modu, Adamu Ali Karumi and Ibrahim Usman Ali — lodged an appeal against conviction and sentence.
Boko Haram’s Islamist insurgency, which has predominantly affected northeast Nigeria, has left at least 20,000 people dead and made more than 2.6 million people homeless since 2009.
But very few fighters detained by the military over that time have been charged and prosecuted.
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