After initial denials, Mustapha Umar, has finally confessed planning
the coordinated attacks on the building occupied by three media houses
-Thisday, The Sun and the Moment newspapers in Kaduna State on April 26,
2012 with his friends.He, however, told the court that the attack was not sponsored by Boko Haram sect, but intended to wreck the organisation for publishing materials that were insulting Prophet Mohammed.
Umar, 34, a Kanuri from Borno State and a widower with children, said he was not a member of the Boko Haram, saying that he and his friends trained under Sheikh Ja’afar M’adam in Maiduguri.
Umar, who said he was educated up to secondary school level having attended the Government Day Secondary School, Maiduguri, said while the Kaduna bombing was done with his private Honda car he bought a year earlier, the bombing of the newspapers’ office in Abuja was carried out by his friend – Alhaji – with his (Alhaji’s) SUV.
Umar made this confession during an interview conducted by policemen shortly after he was apprehended.
The recorded interview contained in a video compact disc (VCD) tendered in court on Tuesday by prosecution lawyer, S. M. Labaran, was played in the open court yesterday.
Umar, a suspected Boko Haram member, charged with terrorism related offences over the explosion, which partly damaged the building -SOJ Plaza – occupied by Thisday, The Sun and the Moment, on Kontagora Road.
