South African court jails Henry Okah for 24 years

  A South African court on Tuesday sentenced Henry Okah, leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), to 24 years in jail after he was found guilty of 13 counts of terrorism, including a bomb attack that killed 12 people and injured 36 others in Abuja during Nigeria’s 2010 independence celebration.

Judge Neels Claassen delivered the sentence in the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg, Phindi Louw, spokeswoman for the National Prosecuting Authority, said in a phone interview with Bloomberg.

Okah was found guilty on January 21 of planning car bomb attacks in 2010 in Abuja, close to where President Goodluck Jonathan was celebrating. Nigeria’s 50 years of independence.

South African law allows trials of alleged terrorists arrested or resident in the country no matter where their acts were committed.

The Abuja bombing was claimed by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).

Okah was sentenced to 12 years for the Abuja bombing and another 12 years for a March 2010 bombing in Warri, Delta State which MEND also claimed responsibility for, Louw said. Okah was also sentenced to 10 years for threatening South Africa and that term will run concurrently with the 12-year sentence for the bombing in Abuja, she said.

MEND had threatened to attack the holdings of companies including MTN Group Ltd. (MTN), Africa’s biggest mobile phone operator, and SacOil Holding Ltd. (SCL), an oil and gas exploration company, saying South African President Jacob Zuma is interfering “in the legitimate fight for justice” in the Niger Delta region.

Okah, who denies the charges, declined to testify. He said his trial was unfair, because the Nigerian government blocked about 20 witnesses from traveling to South Africa to give evidence, he said in an interview in January 31.

“The judge made his decision based on what was before him,” Okah said. “The problem is that my witnesses were stopped from coming.”

The Federal Government accuses Okah of being the leader of MEND, which says it was fighting for a greater share of oil revenue for the region. 

  Thousands of fighters have since dropped their weapons and accepted a government amnesty.

While Okah denies being involved in the Abuja blasts and on Tuesday described the claim that he leads MEND as “ridiculous,” he has said he commands the support of many armed groups in the Niger Delta region.

Analysts believe it would have been too dangerous for him to be tried in Nigeria because of the presence of his militant supporters.

Okah was arrested on gun-running charges in Angola in 2007 and then transferred to Nigeria but never convicted.

He was released after two years under an amnesty for oil militants and he returned to South Africa, where he had lived since 2003.