Nigeria: hostages killed before raid

ROYTON kidnap victim Chris McManus died before the raid mounted to rescue him and fellow captive, Italian Franco Lamolinara, Nigerian secret police have revealed.

Chris was kidnapped in Nigeria by a splinter cell of a radical Islamist sect and murdered before the commando operation.

Nigeria’s secretive State Security Service also said the mastermind of the kidnapping of Chris McManus and Italian Franco Lamolinara, by members of a sect known as Boko Haram, died in their custody after suffering gunshot wounds during his arrest.

The police statement came nearly a week after the rescue operation by British and Nigerian commandos in Nigeria’s North-West city of Sokoto.

It also appears to try to absolve Nigerian authorities of any responsibility over the deaths. The men had been kidnapped last May.

Mr McManus was working for the construction company B.Stabilini when he was kidnapped by gunmen who stormed his apartment in the city of Birnin–Kebbi, about 110 miles away from Sokoto.

In its statement, the State Security Service said three young men watched Mr McManus before the abduction. Information gathered led security forces to a house in Zaria in central Kaduna state on March 7, where forces shot and wounded Abu Mohammed, the mastermind of the kidnapping.

A soldier was killed in that operation and apparently one sect member escaped, the service said. Another sect member led authorities to the Mabera neighbourhood of Sokoto, where the hostages were being held, Buy this time it was too late to save the two men.

“Apparently acting on the directive of the member of the sect who escaped from Zaria, the guards murdered the hostages before the arrival of security forces,” the statement read.