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Nigeria: Christmas bombing suspect re-captured
However, a day after his arrest, a local police commissioner ordered Sokoto to be transferred to another police station in Abaji, a town outside of the capital. Authorities say the officers guarding Sokoto were attacked by suspected sect members and that he escaped, though the timing of the transfer and the official version of how he escaped has been widely questioned in the time since.
The local police commissioner has since been removed and is under investigation. Jonathan also fired the nation’s top police official, though he was only a few months away from mandatory retirement.
It appears Nigeria’s government has invested more manpower in hunting down Sokoto and keeping him held. The suspected bombing mastermind was flown back to Abuja on an air force flight, said a security official who requested anonymity as he wasn’t authorized to speak to journalists.
Sokoto’s arrest comes after authorities say they detained a Boko Haram spokesman who uses the nom de guerre Abul-Qaqa. While Abul-Qaqa and Sokoto’s apprehensions are major arrests, Boko Haram’s leader Imam Abubakar Shekau has issued video messages promising future attacks.
On Thursday, suspected Boko Haram gunmen shot and killed a Kano man who criticized the sect. He was shot after leaving a mosque for prayers, said witness Maikudi Hotoron Arewa. He said the gunmen told the man: “You are always critical of us. Your audacity cannot be achieved.”
This year, Boko Haram is blamed for killing at least 271 people, according to an Associated Press count. At least 185 people died in the sect’s coordinated assault in January on Kano, the largest city of Nigeria’s Muslim north.
Meanwhile Friday, the state-run Nigerian Television Authority aired an audio clip it said came from Boko Haram. The clip denied it wanted any peace negotiations with the nation’s government, contradicting an earlier video played by the television station this week showing two masked men who seemingly indicated the sect wanted talks.
“They should unmask themselves and let us know who they are,” a man said in Friday’s audio clip.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
