Ex-guerilla leader arrested in connection with Nigerian car bombings

South African police arrested Henry Okah, former leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, on Saturday in connection with two car bombings in Nigeria which claimed the lives of 12 people

By News Wires (text)

AP - An ex-leader of a militant group that claimed responsibility for a dual car bombing that killed 12 in Nigeria has been arrested in Johannesburg, a spokeswoman for Nigeria’s secret police said Saturday.

Marilyn Ogar, a spokeswoman for the State Security Service, also acknowledged in an interview with The Associated Press that her secretive agency had intelligence beforehand that an attack was imminent. However, it and others were unable to stop the bombings that targeted celebrations surrounding Nigeria’s 50^th anniversary of independence from Britain.

Ogar said police arrested Henry Okah, the ex-leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta sometime after the bombings Friday.

Police officials in South Africa did not immediately return a call for comment Saturday night.

The Movement for the Emancipation for the Niger Delta, also known by the acronym MEND, issued a warning to journalists about an hour before the attacks Friday, telling people to stay away from festivities at Eagle Square in the nation’s capital of Abuja. It blamed Nigeria’s government for doing nothing to end the unceasing poverty in the delta as the nation receives billions of dollars from oil revenue.

The militant group has destroyed oil pipelines, kidnapped petroleum company workers and fought government troops since 2006.

Okah was freed from a Nigerian jail in July 2009 after the nation’s attorney general dropped the treason and gun running charges against him. He later moved to Johannesburg after MEND said he suffered from a kidney ailment.

Ogar also said her agency received “intelligence from our foreign partners, long, long before the attacks.” She said security agencies and police cordoned off the area surrounding Eagle Square, where President Goodluck Jonathan and other dignitaries watched a military parade.

The dual car bombs detonated about a 10-minute walk away. The event went on uninterrupted.

“Unfortunately, there’s no way security can be 100 percent foolproof,” Ogar said. “We are happy all the same the event when on smoothly and it wasn’t interrupted.”