Absence of Interpreter stalls Nyanya bombing suspect-Ogwuche’s trial

The arraignment of the one of the al­leged masterminds of the April 14, 2014, Nyanya bomb blast, Aminu Sadiq Ogwuche before the Federal High Court

sitting in Abuja was yesterday stalled due to the absence of the official interpreter of the court.

Recall that Ogwuche is be­ing held in the custody of the Department of State Security (DSS) along with seven other suspects for allegedly bomb­ing a popular motor park in Nyanya, a suburb of the Fed­eral Capital Territory in April last year, which claimed over 75 lives. The court however fixed March 6 for the arraign­ment.

The trial judge, Justice A.R Mohammed also called for the cooperation of counsel in the matter so as to give it ac­celerated hearing.

At the resumed hearing yesterday, all the suspects were legally represented in court, but they could not be arraigned because of the ab­sence of the court’s official interpreter, Murtala Moham­med. Ogwuche had, through his counsel, Ahmed Raji, SAN, earlier asked the court to compel DSS to pay him N100 million as compensa­tion for his unlawful arrest and detention without trial.

Ogwuche, in an applica­tion brought pursuant to Or­der 2, Rule (1), (2), (3) of the Fundamental Enforcement Procedure Rule and Sections 34,35,36,37 and 42 of the 1999 Constitution is seeking for the enforcement of his fundamental human right.

He joined the SSS and the Attorney General of the Fed­eration (AGF) as defendants in the application, but the court latter struck out AGF’s name on his request.

Arguing his application, Raji noted that it was based on the request of the Federal Government that the Inter­pol placed a red alert on the applicant contrary to the im­pression that it was the Inter­pol that, on its own placed the red alert.

Raji further drew the at­tention of the court to the fact that the charge on which Og­wuche was arrested and de­tained had been struck out by the court for lack of diligent prosecution and added that the charge was the founda­tion of the extradition order which led to the arrest of the applicant.