Before admitting the car, Justice Bilkisu Aliyu, accompanied by the clerk of the court and counsel for the parties, inspected it.
In the five counts it brought against the six suspected Boko Haram members – Shuaibu Abubakar, Salisu Ahmed, Umar Babagana-Umar, Mohammed Ali, Musa Adam and Umar Ibrahim – the State Security Service maintained that its investigations revealed that the accused persons participated in various terror attacks between March and July, 2011.
Mr. Olaoye Kehinde, an SSS exhibit keeper, tendered the car with number plate AG94MNG Borno.
The vehicle was admitted as evidence after the defence counsel, Mr. Nureni Sulyman, and the accused persons, raised no objections.
The Honda Civic was the vehicle in which some of the suspects were travelling in when they were arrested at an army roadblock near Gummel Junction in Kachia Kaduna on July 27, 2011.
Another prosecution witness, who testified earlier in the trial, had informed the court that the suspects were carrying explosives, and other materials used in manufacturing improvised explosive devices, including cortex wires and industrial powder.
After Kehinde stepped down, prosecution counsel, Mr. Thompson Olatigbe, announced that the prosecution had closed its case and would not be calling any other witness.
Sulyman thereafter informed the court that the defence would file an application “for no case submission”.
“We have an application before the court, we are applying for no case submission,” Sulyman said.
Bilikisu, who ordered that the application must be in writing, gave the defence two weeks to file and serve the prosecution with the no case submission.
She also gave the prosecution two weeks, from the date of service, to reply to the application.
Bilikisu adjourned the matter till February 6 and 7, 2013, to hear the application for no case submission.
The suspects were thereafter returned to the Kuje Prisons.
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