Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court in Abuja has admitted additional confessional statements and a Digital Forensic Examination Report in the trial of five individuals accused of involvement in the June 5, 2022 terror attack on St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State, which left 41 people dead and 140 others injured.
The court also accepted a Tecno mobile phone that reportedly contained evidence of communication among the defendants before and after the attack. The exhibits were admitted following the absence of objections from the defendants’ counsel, Abdullahi Mohammed.
During the proceedings, the Department of State Services (DSS), prosecuting the case, formally closed its case after calling 11 witnesses. Justice Nwite adjourned the matter to March 4 and 5 for the defendants to present their defence.
Defence counsel indicated that the defendants would testify on their own behalf and requested access to the accused in DSS custody to prepare their case efficiently.
The DSS’s last witness, a senior forensic and counter-terrorism operative code-named PSSK, explained that advanced geospatial network filtering technology was used to trace the perpetrators. The process analyzed thousands of mobile phone lines in Egbeka and Ifon, ultimately leading to the identification and arrest of the fifth defendant, Idris Abdulmalik Omeiza, in Ifon, Ondo State.
Omeiza’s confession, according to the witness, helped secure the arrest of the remaining four suspects. Forensic investigations showed that the defendants communicated with one another before and after the attack. The witness emphasized that the arrests were the result of systematic technological investigations, not by chance.
Cross-examination revealed that the post-incident investigation lasted more than a month, and all five defendants were arrested in August 2022 at various locations in Kogi and Ondo states.
