Court admits statements, video recordings against alleged coup plotters, fixes Dec for trial

Justice Joyce Abdulmalik of the Federal High Court in Abuja has dismissed the objections of the alleged coup plotters against the admission of their statements and video recordings made to the military during their interrogation for allegedly plotting to violently overthrow the government of President Bola Tinubu.

The Judge on Thursday upheld the submission of the federal government that the statements and video recordings were voluntarily made by the defendants during interrogation by the military.

In a ruling on trial-within-trial conducted by the court to ascertain the genuineness of the plotters’ allegations, Justice Abdulmalik held that there was no iota of evidence that the statements and video recordings were made under duress.

Specifically, the judge dismissed the allegations of torture, inducement and employment of force by the military to make them give the confessional statements and video recordings.

She admitted the statements and video recordings as exhibits against the defendants while dismissing their claims of being made under duress.

The alleged coup plotters are retired Major General Mohammed Gana, retired Navy Capt. Erasmus Victor, Insp. Ahmed Ibrahim, Zekeri Umoru, Bukar Goni and Abdulkadir Sani as 1st to 6th defendants respectively.

The Federal Government, through the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation, AGF, had, on April 22, arraigned the six defendants on a 13-count charge.

The charge, marked FHC/ABJ/CR/206/2026, was filed on April 20 by the Director, Public Prosecutions of the Federation, Rotimi Oyedepo, SAN.

The defendants were accused of offences ranging from treason and terrorism to failure to disclose security intelligence and money laundering linked to terrorism financing.

Justice Abdulmalik had, on May 11, ordered the trial-within-trial after defence lawyers objected to the admissibility of the statements and video recordings the prosecution sought to tender.

They argued that the statements were not made voluntarily and filed an objection after the prosecution had called four witnesses.

The 4th prosecution witness, PW-4, an army officer identified by the codename “AAA,” had tendered video recordings of the defendants’ interrogations before the trial-within-trial began.

Justice Abdulmalik admitted the statements of the accused persons and the video recordings against the defendants.

She subsequently fixed December 7 and 10 for continuation of the trial.