{{Nigerian militant Henry Okah who has been found guilty of 13 terrorism-related charges over twin car bombings during the country\u2019s Independence Day in 2010 is to spend 24 years in jail.}}<\/p>\n
The verdict was given Tuesday by a South African court.<\/p>\n
At least 12 people were killed and 36 others injured during the bombings. Okah led a group, which said it was fighting to help Niger Delta residents gain a greater share of the oil wealth from their part of southern Nigeria.<\/p>\n
The court established that Okah is the former leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).<\/p>\n
He also received a 13-year jail term for threats made to the South African government after his arrest in October 2010 but this runs concurrently with his 24-year sentence.<\/p>\n
The judge found that the state had proven Okah\u2019s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt because he didn\u2019t testify in his own defence during the trial.<\/p>\n
He had repeatedly denied any involvement in the bombings.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors have argued that although Okah is not a South African citizen, the country had the jurisdiction to try him under the International Co-operation in Criminal Matters Act.<\/p>\n
Analysts believe it would have been too dangerous for him to be tried in Nigeria because of the presence of his militant supporters.<\/p>\n
The BBC says Okah may no longer be a headache for the Nigerian authorities but the threat of instability in the Niger Delta remains strong, despite a fall in the levels of violence since a 2009 amnesty.<\/p>\n
Okah was arrested on gun-running charges in Angola in 2007 and then transferred to Nigeria but never convicted.<\/p>\n
{NGuardian}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{Nigerian militant Henry Okah who has been found guilty of 13 terrorism-related charges over twin car bombings during the country\u2019s Independence Day in 2010 is to spend 24 years in jail.}} The verdict was given Tuesday by a South African court. At least 12 people were killed and 36 others injured during the bombings. Okah […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-6790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6790"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=6790"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=6790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}