An officer of the Department of State Services (DSS) on Wednesday told a federal high court how cell phone analysis of the four men being prosecuted for allegedly carrying out the June 5, 2022, massacre at the St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State, placed them at the crime scene.

The officer told the court that phone calls by the defendants – Idris Abdulmalik Omeiza (25 years), Al Qasim Idris (20 years), Jamiu Abdulmalik (26 years), Abdulhaleem Idris (25 years) and Momoh Otuho Abubakar (47 years)- about the time of the attack, put them in the vicinity of St. Francis Catholic Church, Owo.

He disclosed that the DSS had sufficient technical evidence to show that the first to fourth defendants were around the church premises during the attack.

The DSS officer explained that the technical evidence showed that their phones and conversations were around the telecommunications cell site location around the attack.

Aside from the phone records’ analysis conducted by the DSS, said the officer, the defendants voluntarily made confessional statements linking them to the attack.

The witness said the statement-taking session was witnessed by the Director of the Legal Aid Council when the defendants said they could not afford to have either their lawyers or family members around to witness the session.

He identified the five defendants, giving details of how he obtained the confessional statements from the first to fourth defendants, which he said they offered voluntarily.

An objection raised by the defence lawyer, Abdullahi Mohammad, to the admissibility of the defendants’ statements was overruled by the trial judge, Justice Emeka Nwite.

The judge, in a ruling, also rejected Mohammad’s request that the court order the conduct of a trial-within-trial to resolve all the doubts about whether or not the defendants made the statements.

Justice Nwite upheld the submission by prosecuting lawyer, Ayodeji Adedipe (SAN), that a trial-within-trial could only be ordered where the issue is about the voluntariness of the statement and not where a defendant denies making the statement, as it is in the case.

Adedipe had, after the 10th prosecution witness, identified as SSJ, given evidence about how he obtained the confessional statements from the first to fourth defendants, applied to tender them in evidence.

Muhammad objected to the admissibility of the statements and urged the court to order a trial-within-trial on the grounds that the said statements were not made by his clients.

Testifying earlier under cross-examination by Muhammad, the ninth prosecution witness, SSI, insisted that the defendants were involved in the attack and gave further details of what the investigation conducted on the case by the DSS revealed.

SSI, who told the court on Tuesday that he led the investigation team, restated that the defendants were arrested in August 2022, in both Kogi and Ondo States, while they were being interviewed in Abuja.

He confirmed that all defendants are members of ISWAP, who belong to a cell operating as Al Shabab. He stated that there is also a Mahmuda group of ISWAP in the area.

The witness told the court that after the attack, the fourth defendant returned the weapons used for the attack to Odoba and also returned the car to where he rented it from.

SSI confirmed that the case was thoroughly investigated and that evidence that indicted the defendants were duely obtained.

The witness confirmed that the defendants used two vehicles during the attack, adding that while they drove in a rented vehicle to the church, they snatched another vehicle from a worshipper, who was returning from church service, which they used as a getaway vehicle.

He further confirmed that the defendants had a meeting at Govt Secondary School, Ogaminana, where one Odoba gave the instruction to the 2nd Defendant for the attack.

The meeting, the witness said, preceded two other meetings they held on the 3rd and 4th June 2022, before the attack.

SSI confirmed that the defendants used both explosives and several rounds of ammunition during the attack.

He insisted that no other persons outside the defendants were arrested by the DSS in respect of this case.