Monday, January 30, 2012

Major Hamza Al-Mustapha and Accomplice Sentenced To Death


Major Hamza Al-Mustapha going to jail.

Monday January 30 was an ill-fated day for Major Hamza Al-Mustapha as he was sentenced to death by Judge Mojisola Dada at the high court in Igbosere on the Lagos Island in Nigeria. The former Chief Security Officer to late General Sani Abacha, the despotic tyrant and ruler of Nigeria from 1993 to 1998, was found guilty of masterminding the assassination of Kudirat Abiola on June 4th 1996. Kudirat was one of the wives of the late Chief M.K.O Abiola, the president-elect of the annulled 1993 presidential election. Al-mustapha was sentenced along with Alhaji Lateef Shofolahan, a protocol officer in the MKO Abiola campaign organization, also found guilty for his complicity in the murder of Kudirat. Al-mustapha has been in detention since he was arrested on Thursday, 22nd day of October 1998.


Kudirat Abiola


Chief M.K.O Abiola and Gen. Sani Abacha


On December 21, 2010, Hamza Al-mustapha was discharged and acquitted for the attempted murder of Mr. Alex Ibru, Publisher of The Guardian newspapers on February 2, 1996, when his car was sprayed with machine gun fire from unidentified men who had trailed him in a deep-blue Peugeot when Ibru was the Minister of Internal Affairs from 1993 to 1995 during the military regime of General Sani Abacha. Alex Ibru died on 20 November 2011, aged 66.

Without doubt, Al-mustapha will appeal against the death sentence.


~ By Orikkinla Osinachi



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