SSS set to charge Amigo Supermarket co-owner, three other Lebanese to court Thur

Front View of Amigo Super… Photo: Courtesy www.panoramio.com via google

The Department of State Security Service, SSS, is set to charge Mustapha Fawaz, and three other Lebanese accused of terrorism related activities to court on Thursday morning.

Sources at the security service say the four men will be charged at the Federal High Court, Abuja.

The SSS and the Joint Task Force had, in a joint operation in Kano, discovered a cache of arms at a building in Kano believed to be owned by the Lebanese.

The security service subsequently sealed Amigo Supermarket, one of Abuja’s largest supermarkets, and Wonderland Amusement Park, Abuja’s largest.

Both are owned Mr. Fawaz and another Fauzi Fawaz, said to be on the run by the security agencies.

The Lagos-based law firm of Bamidele Aturu & Co had written the SSS requesting access to the detainees.

In the letter dated June 3, and addressed to the Director General of SSS, Ekpeyong Ita, the firm also demanded that the suspects should be charged to court if they had committed any offence since the Nigerian constitution forbids preventive detention without trial beyond 24 hours.

The letter signed by Bamidele Aturu, the senior partner of the law firm, was also sent to the Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, NHRC.

PREMIUM TIMES had reported how the security service wants Amigo to be demolished to prevent it being handed over to its Lebanese owners.

While the SSS wants the sprawling Amigo mall, estimated at more than N5 billion, bulldozed and the area thoroughly frisked for concealed arms, it suggests Abuja’s biggest amusement park, Wonderland, also owned by the Lebanese, be immediately revoked by the Federal Capital Territory Administration, FCTA.


-- Premium Times