Ndume Made Contacts With Boko Haram Spokesman 73 Times –SSS
A
prosecution witness, in the trial of Senator Aliyu Ndume over alleged financing
of terrorism, Usman Aliyu, has told a Federal High Court that in the course of
investigation, it was discovered that 73 communication contacts were made
between the senator and the convicted spokesperson of the Boko Haram sect, Ali
Sada Umar Konduga (aka Usman Al-Zawahiri).
Konduga was convicted after pleading
guilty to the charge preferred against him by the State Security Service (SSS).
The witness further added that the communication took place between October 3
and November 3, 2011 stating that such communication included voice call, SMS
and MMS.
He also stated that further forensic
analysis carried out on the two mobile phones, Nokia E7 and Nokia 2700
belonging to Ndume and Konduga respectively, showed that the first SMS was sent
from Ndume’s phone to that of Konduga on October 3, 2011. He also told the
court that Senator Ndume mobile number was found on Konduga’s phone on entry 78
and the same was stored as ‘INDUME Sen’ and that Konduga mobile number was also
found on Ndume’s phone, which was stored as entry 1, 819 with the name ‘ALI MAL
BH’. But when the prosecution counsel, Johnson Olatigbe wanted to tender the
report of the witness, contained in three different DVDs after the examination
of the two phones, the defence counsel, Ricky Tarfa (SAN) objected to the
admissibility of the items on the grounds that there was no evidence before the
court that the items seeking to be tendered were primary evidence.
Tarfa said the DVDs were computer
generated evidence, which required a backing statement to authenticate the
veracity of the items seeking to be tendered and prayed the court to reject the
DVDs. While urging the court to admit the items as exhibits, the prosecution
counsel said it was the responsibility of the court to look and admit them as
exhibits. After listening to the submissions of parties in the matter, the
trial Judge, Justice Gabriel Kolawale reserved ruling till Friday, December 14
on admissibility of the items the prosecution was seeking to tender.
Source: Sun
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