President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria
The reinstatement of Major General Ahmadu Mohammed accused of the mass murder of hundreds of detainees has provoked the condemnation of Amnesty International.
The the rights group says it underlines the monumental failure of the Muhammadu Buhari government to stamp out impunity for war crimes at the highest level.
General Mohammed was in charge of 7 Division and was in command of operations when the military executed more than 640 detainees following a Boko Haram attack on the detention centre in Giwa barracks on 14 March 2014. He was retired in 2014 for unrelated reasons, but reinstated in January this year, quietly.
Mohammed was the commander of the war theatre when Boko Haram took control of a large swath of Nigeria’s northeast where the extremists declared an Islamic caliphate, and when the insurgents kidnapped nearly 219 schoolgirls from Chibok town.
He was retired in 2014 after mutinying soldiers shot at him, revolting because they said a dozen colleagues killed by Boko Haram in a night ambush on the road from Chibok had been unnecessarily sent into danger.
Last June, Amnesty International named Major General Ahmadu Mohammed, along with eight other senior commanders, calling for an investigation into their possible criminal responsibility for war crimes including the deaths of more than 8,000 of detainees.
An in-depth report by AI exposed a range of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity committed by the military in the course of operations against Boko Haram. It found that, since March 2011, more than 7,000 were starved, suffocated, and tortured to death in military detention camps. A further 1,200 were rounded up and unlawfully killed.
“Major General Mohammed must be investigated for participating in, sanctioning or failing to prevent the deaths of hundreds of people,” said Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International.
“Young men and boys, …Read More
Source:: PM Newspaper
