War Crimes: Military not afraid of ICC investigation, defence boss

Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Christopher Musa, said the country’s military will welcome Amnesty International at the International Criminal Court (ICC) with open arms in its quest to investigate alleged war crimes committed by counterterrorism soldiers deployed to conflict zones.

Reacting to a lawsuit filed by the ICC in an interview monitored on Al Jazeera, Musa disputed the war crimes allegations, such as attacks on civilians, extrajudicial executions, torture, rape, and enforced disappearances in the insurgency-torn North-east, saying those claims were attempts to demoralise Nigerian troops.

Mr Musa said he wondered if Amnesty was trying to say other humanitarian bodies in the detention facility are complicit in the crimes it is accusing the military of, adding that humanitarian organisations, including the United Nations and Amnesty, are working in Giwa Barracks, where more than 10,000 civilians have died.

“We are ready. We are ready to go [to the ICC],” the CDS said. “We are not afraid of anybody… I think they have their intent on why they are doing that,” he added.

He further stated that other organizations present there would have voiced their concerns if the military was doing anything wrong in the detention facility.

“They want us to look bad,” Mr. Musa said. “I just can’t understand why anybody would wake up and say that we are killing people when we are not doing the same,” Musa said.

The rights group said more than 10,000 civilians have died in military custody since the Boko Haram insurgency began in the northeast. This was not the first time the organisation had made this allegation.

In 2020, Amnesty said many of the civilians died in Giwa Barracks, a military detention facility in Borno State.