A witness of the Department State Services (DSS) on Thursday gave a detailed narrative of how suspected terrorists who attacked St. Francis Catholic Church, Owo in Ondo State on June 5, 2022 were tracked and apprehended.
The operative, who testified as the 11th prosecution witness (PW-11), told Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court in Abuja while being led in evidence by the DSS counsel, Ayodeji Adedipe, SAN.
PW-11, the last witness to testify before the service closed its case, said his team deployed technical means to trace, locate and arrest the alleged perpetrators of the attack.
The DSS had dragged five men – Idris Abdulmalik Omeiza (25 years), Al Qasim Idris (20 years), Jamiu Abdulmalik (26 years), Abdulhaleem Idris (25 years) and Momoh Otuho Abubakar (47 years) – to court over the attack and charged with terrorism-related offences.
The witness, identified as “SSK” for security reasons, said he is currently the Digital Forensic Lead at the Counter-Terrorism Investigation Department of the service.
The witness said following the terrorist attack on June 5, 2022, the Director General of the DSS directed his team to trace, locate and apprehend the perpetrators.
He said his team applied what he called, call geospatial network filtering and cell tower triangulation in its investigation.
“With these applications, we were able to filter thousands of mobile phones that had contact with the cell tower in Owaluwa, Elegbeka and Ifon.
“As a result of this, we narrowed it down to one of the defendants’ phone number. The defendant is identified as Idris Abdulmalik Omeiza (the 1st defendant)
“The system revealed a unique identification number, the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) associated with the 1st defendant’s phone,
“This number is a unique digital fingerprint associated with every phone, meaning that no two phones have the same IMEI. This enabled us to trace, locate and arrest the 1st defendant. His arrest and confession led to the arrest of other defendants.
“We furthered the analysis by carrying out what we called frequency of communication.
“Analysis revealed that the 1st defendant had bi-directional communication with two other defendants, namely, Jamiu (3rd defendant) and Al-Qasim (2nd defendant).
“These three individuals exchanged several communications before the incident and after the incident, that is, between 1st March, 2022 and 30th July, 2022, within the space of six months,” the witness said.
SSK identified the digital forensic examination report, which he said his team produced, which the prosecuting lawyer tendered in evidence without an objection from the defence lawyer, Abdullahi Muhammad.
The prosecution also tendered through the PW-11 a black Tecno mobile phone through the witness, without opposition from the defence.
Both the digital forensic examination report, and the mobile phone were admitted in evidence by the court as Exhibits T and U.
The witness, who said the phone was retrieved from the 1st defendant, told the court that after the 1st defendant’s arrest, the IMEI of the Tecno Phone marched the IMEI of the call data records.
When asked by Adedipe to give a summary of his team’s findings in relation to the defendants’ connection to the case, the witness said his team found that on the day of the incident, at about 7:23am, the 1st defendant’s “mobile phone was strangulated around 35 kilometres radius to the crime scene, that is, the church, a distance that can be covered within 30 to 40 minutes drive.
“Even though the 1st defendant applied no phone call rule, as a trained terrorist, his mobile phone was active. And, shortly after the attack, analysis revealed movement of the mobile phone towards Ifon.
“In addition, we also checked the pre-attack days, which were on the 3rd and 4th of June 2022. The 1st defendant’s mobile phone was within the radius of Elegbeka and Ifon axis. There is what is called silent witness. The movement of the phone from one cell tower to another gave us an insight to the movement of the 1st defendant on pre-attack days and the day of attack.
“The frequency of communication further revealed relationship analysis among the defendants.
Three of the defendants made several calls before and after the attack, which showed that they know one another and that their arrest is not by accident,” the witness said.
Under cross examination by Muhammad, the witness said it took his team over one month to locate and arrest the 1st defendant.
He said he could not recall the actual dates that the defendants were arrested, but that all the defendants were traced, located and arrested in the month of August 2022 at different locations within Kogi and Ondo states.
When asked to specify where the 1st defendant was arrested, the witness said he was apprehended
in Eika in Kogi State.
On why he did not bring the mobile phones of the other defendants to court, the witness said he brought only the black Tecno mobile phone because of its relevance to his team’s investigation.
At the end of the 11th prosecution witness’ testimony, Adedipe announced the closure of the prosecution’s case.
When asked by trial judge how many witnesses the defence lawyer planned to call, Muhammad said he would call only the defendants as witnesses in the defence’s case.
He said for him to be fully prepared for defence, he needed to be availed with a copy of the 5th defendant’s statement, which was tendered during Thursday’s proceedings, and be allowed access to the defendants, who are currently being held in DSS’ custody.
With the intervention of the judge, Adedipe promised to ensure that Muhammad was granted easy access to his clients for consultations before they open their case.
Justice Nwite adjourned the matter until March 4 and 5 for the defendants to open their case.
Earlier, under cross examination, the 10th prosecution witness, identified as SSJ, insisted that he asked each of the 1st to 4th defendants if they could write the statements by themselves and they informed him individually that they cannot write perfectly well in English.
On whether he wrote the statements collectively or individually, the same day or separate days, the witness said he took the statements of the 1st to 4th defendants individually on the same day, which was August 18, 2022.
On how many hours it took him to take the statements, the witness said it took an average of 10 hours.
On whether the statements taken on August 18, 2022 were the only statements taken at the DSS headquarters, the witness said they were the only statements taken by him as an the investigator in the case. (NAN)
