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| Nigerian Army ratifies life jail for 27 soldiers, commutes sentences
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Abuja, Nigeria (PANA) -
The Nigerian Army has ratified the life jail slammed on
27 soldiers for staging a public protest
in Akure, capital of South-west Ondo state, in 2008, but the sentences have been
commuted to seven years
imprisonment for each convicted soldier, army spokesman Brig.-Gen. Chris Olukola
de said here Saturday.
The 27 soldiers, who previously served under the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL),
were sentenced to life jail on 27
April 2009, after they were convicted over the public demonstration they staged
in July 2008 to press for the payment of
the backlog of their foreign allowances, which they claimed to be US$25,000 each
.
Though the soldiers' lawyers had vowed to appeal the life sentences, they recent
ly claimed they could not
yet file their appeal because they had not received the proceedings of the trial
from the military court that tried
the soldiers.
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| Abuja - 29/08/2009 |
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