L-R: Mr Steven Hill, Executive Secretary IIJ. Ms Francesca Santoro, Head of Department Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, retired Rear Adm. Yaminu Musa , Coordinator National Counter Terrorism Centre at the Global Counter Terrorism Forum (GCTF) 7th Plenary Meeting in Malta.
Nigeria and Italy have reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening criminal justice and rule of law in combating terrorism across the globe.
This commitment was demonstrated when the two countries co-chaired the seventh Plenary Meeting of the Global Counterterrorism Forum’s (GCTF) Criminal Justice and Rule of Law (CJ-ROL) Working Group in St Julian’s, Malta.
This is contained in a statement from the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) on Friday in Abuja.
The Coordinator, National Counterterrorism Centre (NCTC), retired Rear Adm. Yaminu Musa, said the administration of criminal justice terrorism-related cases could neither be efficient nor effective if the rights of those concerned were not protected.
Musa, who represented Nigeria at the event, said the effect of lack of protection for witnesses had resulted in the striking out of cases by the courts involving heinous crimes because witnesses often refuse to testify due to the absence of a system designed to cater to their protection.
He said that Nigeria had on May 23, 2022, signed the Witness Protection and Management Act into law to specifically address that challenge.
According to him, Nigeria first co-chaired the CJ-ROL Working Group with Switzerland in 2018 and developed the Abuja Recommendations on Collection, Use and Sharing of Evidence for Purposes of Criminal Prosecution of Terror Suspects.
He said the recommendation was endorsed at the 2018 GCTF Ministerial Meeting on the sidelines of the 72nd United Nations General Assembly.
“It also co-organised the First Expert Meeting of the Working Group for the development of a set of recommendations on Rule of Law-Based Administrative Measures in the Counterterrorism Context held at The Hague, The Netherlands,” he said.
The NCTC coordinator said the CJ-ROL working group had since inception, accomplished a lot through the development of recommendations and good practice memoranda, such as the Rabat Memorandum on good practices for effective ccounterterrorismpractice in the criminal justice sector.
He added that the working group’s Hague Memorandum on Good Practices for the Judiciary in Adjudicating Terrorism Offense had also been compiled to assist judges to more effectively adjudicate cases that involve terrorism.