Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Abuja - A court martial has sentenced 12 Nigerian soldiers fighting Islamic extremists to death by firing squad for mutiny and attempted murder of their commanding officer.
In a decision announced early on Tuesday, a military tribunal found 12 soldiers guilty and five others innocent. All the accused denied the charges.
The soldiers accused their commanders of conspiring to kill fellow troopers after a convoy was ambushed on 13 May on a road frequently attacked by the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram.
They were driving from Chibok, the north-eastern town from which more than 270 schoolgirls were kidnapped a month earlier.
When the soldiers' bodies were brought to north-eastern Maiduguri city, the surviving soldiers revolted, throwing stones at their commanding officer and then shooting at him. The officer took refuge in an armoured vehicle and was unharmed.
