Department of State Services (DSS) investigator has told the Federal High Court in Abuja that Terrorist negotiator, Tukur Mamu, was offered a N50 million share by Shugaba, the leader of the terrorist group, who attacked the Abuja-Kaduna-bound train in 2022.
The DSS operative, who testified as the 6th prosecution witness (PW-6) in the ongoing terrorism trial of Mamu, the alleged terrorists’ negotiator, told Justice Mohammed Umar while being led in evidence by the DSS lawyer, David Kaswe.
The witness, who gave his testimony behind a witness screen for security reasons, said the group also asked Mamu to teach them how to open a website for their terrorist activities.
He stated this while interpreting four voice notes played in the courtroom containing the defendant’s telephone interactions with the terrorists who held the abducted train passengers hostage. The audio recordings were extracted from Mamu’s mobile telephones during interrogation after he was arrested in Egypt and brought back to Nigeria.
“The first voice note that played was for the defendant (Mamu) fixing a date for the delivery of the ransom. Terrorists’ leader gave N50m to the alleged negotiator, Mamu The second voice note that played for five minutes was the voice of Shugaba, the leader of the terrorist group.
“In the voice note, he was appreciating the defendant’s effort and asked him to remove N50 million for his personal use from a particular tranche of ransom sent to them.
“The last voice note that played, Baba Adamu, who is their spokesperson, was heard requesting the defendant to help them procure speakers and a public address system for their preaching activities, and the defendant responded that he was going to look into their request.
“They also requested that the defendant teach them how to open a website for their activities,” the witness said.
Mamu was alleged to have convinced the terrorists to discuss ransom payments with individual families of the hostages of the train attack instead of the Chief of Defense Staff Committee set up by the Federal Government for his personal financial giant.
The recorded conversations were played in the courtroom. The witness added that in the course of the investigation, two victims volunteered written statements in which they recounted their experiences.
He said one of the statements was written in English and the other in Hausa. He said the victims, a male and female, were no longer available because they expressed their unwillingness to attend court to testify because of fear and trauma. The court admitted the statements of the victims in evidence and marked them as exhibits after it was not opposed by Usman.
The court also admitted in evidence eight statements made to investigators by Mamu and video recordings of the statement-writing sessions. Kaswe then informed the court that he would be bringing a formal application for the court to visit where the items recovered from Mamu’s house and office are kept.
