Nigeria Opening Secret Detention Center To Interrogate Islamist Sect Suspects

Nigeria is opening a secret detention center to hold and interrogate suspected high-level members of a radical Islamist sect responsible for hundreds of killings this year alone, a security official has told The Associated Press.

While the facility could create a more cohesive effort among disparate and sometimes feuding security agencies in Nigeria to combat the sect known as Boko Haram, it raises concerns about its possible use for torture and illegal detentions. Nigeria’s security forces have notorious human rights records, with a documented history of abusing and even killing prisoners.

The prison is in Lagos, far from the violence plaguing the country’s predominantly Muslim north, where Boko Haram carries out frequent bombings and ambushes, said the security official, who is directly involved in the project. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the facility with journalists.

“All suspects arrested will be taken to the center and would be interrogated by a security group,” the official said. He declined to say exactly where it is or how many inmates it can hold. He said authorities are arranging to transport suspects to Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city located in its southwest.

The detention center was created at the orders of Nigeria’s National Security Adviser Gen. Andrew Owoye Azazi, the official said. Azazi’s telephone number is unlisted and the AP was unable to contact him for comment.

Ekpeyong Ita, the director-general of the Nigeria’s secret police agency known as the State Security Service, declined to comment Thursday when the AP asked him about the prison.

Minutes later, secret police spokeswoman Marilyn Ogar called an AP journalist and said anyone with information about the purported prison should go to the courts instead of talking to journalists. She refused to confirm or deny the prison’s existence.

“Whatever we do, we’re running a democratic system that respects the rule of law,” the spokeswoman said.

Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is sacrilege” in the Hausa language of north Nigeria, is carrying out increasingly sophisticated bombings and attacks in its sectarian fight against the country’s government. The sect carried out a suicide bombing in August at United Nations’ headquarters in the country that killed 25 people and wounded more than 100 others, as well as a coordinated assault this January in the northern city of Kano that killed at least 185 people.

Diplomats and military officials say the sect has links with two other al-Qaida-aligned terrorist groups in Africa. Members of the sect also reportedly have been spotted in northern Mali which Tuareg rebels and hardline Islamists seized control of over the past month.

Police officers shot and killed Boko Haram’s former leader Mohammed Yusuf in 2009 while he was in their custody, underscoring the lack of respect for human rights among the security forces. Security agencies have been unable to find and arrest the sect’s current leader Sheik Abubakar Shekau, who posts taunting videos on the Internet promising more violence.

Associated Press