Falana Urges Military to Set aside Death Sentence passed on 12 Soldiers

Falana Urges Military to Set aside Death Sentence passed on 12 Soldiers

Human rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), has urged the Chief of Army Staff, Lt-General Kenneth Minimah, to set aside the death sentence passed on 12 soldiers by its General Court Martial.

In a petition to the army chief, Falana said the judgment of the court martial cannot be justified as it was characterised by grave errors of law which occasioned miscarriage of justice.

Falana said the convicts were illegally charged with mutiny under Section 52(1) of the Armed Forces Act as the prosecution did not prove that the convicts disobeyed a military act in connection with any operation against the enemy.

He contended that according to the petition filed on behalf of the convicts pursuant to Section 149(1) of the Armed Forces Act (Cap A20) Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004, the soldiers ought not to have been convicted as charged since there was no evidence that they wanted to kill the General Officer commanding (GOC).

While praying the military authority to temper justice with mercy by granting the convicts full pardon, Falana stated that the 12 soldiers ought not to have been charged with attempted murder, convicted and sentenced to death.

“We pray the confirming authorities to temper justice with mercy by granting the convicts full pardon. Even though they were ill-equipped and ill-motivated, they had fought the Boko Haram troops with courage, commitment and loyalty to their country.

“In the process, they had lost many of their colleagues including the 10 whose corpses were brought to the Mailamari Cantonment. In considering the extenuating circumstances we are compelled to remind the confirming authority that the military high command confirmed the allegations of the soldiers who took part in the protest.

“Apart from removing the GOC and retiring him from the Nigerian Army, the authorities have adopted some measures to address the complaints of the soldiers involved in combat operations in the north-east region,” he stated.

Falana drew the attention of the military authorities to the case of Oladele v Nigerian Army (supra) where the Court of Appeal emphasised that members of the armed forces, like other citizens, are entitled to all the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution, including the fundamental rights of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.

“From the facts of this case, the protest staged by the convicts and other soldiers at the Maimalari Cantonment was not connected with “operations against the enemy”. On the contrary, the soldiers were protesting against the negligence of the federal government and the military authorities to motivate and equip them to take part in the “operations against the enemy.

“Soldiers who were demanding for weapons to fight the satanic Boko Haram troops cannot, by any stretch of imagination, be said to have committed the offence of mutiny.

“In the instant case, the prosecution did not prove that the convicts were given ‘an order to carry out a military act’; that they ‘deliberately and by collusion disobeyed the order’; that the disobedience of the order was ‘in connection with operation against the enemy’ and that the acts of the convicts ‘were deliberately designed to put the Nigerian Army in imminent danger.’ Since the prosecution failed woefully to prove the essential elements of the offence, the General Court-Martial erred in law in convicting the 12 soldiers for mutiny and sentencing them to death,” Falana stated.