Nigeria released ‘al-Qaeda suspects’

Nigeria released known terror suspects, including some affiliated with al-Qaeda’s north Africa branch, as part of a programme known as “Perception Management” to placate elders in the country’s Muslim north, according to an American diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks.

The release of the suspects in early 2008 coincides with the period when Nigerian authorities released a man now suspected of helping organise the car bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Abuja that killed 23 people.

The diplomatic cable, dated 20 March, 2008, outlines how 18 terror suspects being held by the government were released earlier that year.

Of them, 12 suspects became part of a programme known as “Perception Management” run by Nigeria’s State Security Service, the nation’s domestic secret police.

Under the programme, imams and traditional leaders in north Nigeria served largely as parole officers for the suspects whom they were supposed to try to reform.

However, the cable suggests pressures to save Nigeria’s international image may have been involved in the decision to release the suspects.

The cable, first reported yesterday by Nigerian newspaper The Punch, shows Nigeria’s struggle to contain radical Muslim terror attacks.

A radical sect known as Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is sacrilege” in the Hausa language, has carried out bloody sectarian attacks against Nigeria’s government in the last year.

The group claimed responsibility for the car bombing of the UN headquarters that wounded 81 people. A high-ranking Nigerian government said last week that Babagana Ismail Kwaljima, a suspected Boko Haram member now being held over the bombing, was released in 2007 to placate Muslim leaders.