The Federal Government has filed fresh charges against 29-year-old Aminu Ogwuche and six others with whom he allegedly carried out the April 14, 2014 bombing in Nyanya, Abuja.
The accused were brought before Justice Ahmed Mohammed of a Federal High Court in Abuja but were not arraigned because five of them had yet to get lawyers.
The other six accused are Akhmad Rufai Abubakar (aka Abu Ibrahim/Maitirare), Mohammed Sani Ishaq, Ya’u Saidu (aka Kofar Rama), Anas Isah, Adamu Yusuf and Nasiru Abubakar.
Meanwhile, the person, who allegedly drove the explosive-laden Volkswagen Golf, used for the bombing, Ahmed Abubakar (aka Dr Tsiga), was said to still be at large.
Another judge of the Federal High Court in Abuja, Justice Adeniyi Ademola, had earlier in November 2014, struck out the charges initially filed against Ogwuche by the police.
The charges filed by police were part of the requirement for extraditing Ogwuche from Sudan, where he allegedly fled to after the bombing.
But the charges were struck out by Justice Ademola for want of diligent prosecution after the police failed to produce the accused persons in court months after the charges were filed.
The seven accused persons in the newly filed charges are accused of conspiracy, engaging in act of terrorism, belonging to Boko Haram, an outlawed group, and refusal to disclose to security agencies, information that would have helped prevented act of terrorism.
Ogwuche was, in count six, accused of rendering supports to a terrorist group by giving money at different times and places in Abuja to the widows of members of the terrorist organisation known as Boko Haram.
He and Abubakar (aka Dr Tsiga) were, in count seven, accused carrying out “surveillance and identified Silverbird Galleria and other locations as potential targets of terrorist attack.”
The accused persons were said to have committed offences contrary to and punishable under sections 1(2)(a) &(b), 5(b),8(b) 16, 17 of the Terrorism Prevention (Amendment) Act 2013.