77 abducted girls identified

MAIDUGURI. — A spokesman for the Borno State governor has said parents, students and teachers have now identified 77 of the girls shown in the video, released on Monday by AFP in which the dreaded Boko Haram sect showed some of the abducted girls.“Remember, I also said that on face value, all the girls in the video are believed to be part of the abducted girls, but Governor Shettima has insisted that the names of all the girls in the video be established and compared with school and security records,” Isa Gusau said on Tuesday.

He added: “The comparison will be done today (yesterday) as the identification exercise continues through the night until every person in that video is named.”

Earlier, Shettima had said that relatives had identified just 54 of the girls. Shettima said he met with families of the kidnapped girls earlier on Tuesday in Borno state’s capital, Maiduguri, at which time the families identified some of their girls.

Shettima said the others also attended the school, but he did not explain how he knew that.

CNN has not yet received confirmation from any parents that their daughters were among the girls shown in the video.

Some relatives also told CNN that more than 50 parents of girls abducted last month watched the videos in the Mbalala district and also in Chibok, and didn’t see any of their daughters in the crowd.

That’s not necessarily surprising — the video shows about 100 girls, not the full 276 abducted from the Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State by members of the Boko Haram.

Meanwhile, three suspected members of Boko Haram, yesterday insisted that faces of prosecution witnesses lined up to testify against them before a Federal High Court in Abuja, must not be masked.

Justice Gabriel Kolawole has fixed June 4 to rule on whether or not to grant the Federal government’s application seeking that its prosecution witnesses’ facial appearances should be masked while testifying.

The accused, who are being prosecuted by the Federal government for terrorism charges, are an Islamic scholar and a lecturer at the Kogi State University, Dr Muhammed Yunus, Salami Abdullahi (aka Asta) and Musa Umar.

They were arraigned on eight counts of terrorism charges, part of which are punishable under Section 17 of the Terrorism Prevention Act 2013 (as amended).

Through their counsel, the accused persons yesterday opposed the prosecution’s application asking the court to set aside or modify its earlier ruling of April 3, 2014, to allow the shielding of the faces of its witnesses by masking.

The prosecution counsel, Mr A Ogunsina, had filed the application dated May 2, 2014, arguing that the earlier ruling of the court, granting a protection for the witnesses, was not exhaustive.

The prosecution argued that its witnesses were still afraid to testify, and had declined invitation to enter the witness box because the cubicle directed by the court to shield them, would not fully protect them from the view of others in the court.

But the defence lawyers argued at yesterday’s proceedings that allowing the witnesses to mask their facial identity while testifying would deprive the judge of his statutory privilege to assess the witnesses’ credibility from their demeanour in the witness box.

The lawyers said they would also lose the opportunity to do a thorough cross-examination of the witnesses if they were unable to watch the countenance of the witnesses. — CNN/The Punch.