Nigeria Reports Killing of Coup Plotters

Between 60 and 80 soldiers were beaten, manacled, then driven by truck to a remote area where they were summarily executed for allegedly trying to overthrow the military dictator of this West African nation, government and intelligence sources said.

The men, many of whom were noncommissioned officers in the Nigerian army, were shot to death March 18 in an isolated wood, about 25 miles north of the capital, the sources said. There was no trial, nor were formal charges filed, they said.

The massacre is the latest violence by the military government of Gen. Sani Abacha, which is trying to hold on to power in the face of a growing opposition. Since seizing control in November, 1993, the government has crushed a pro-democracy strike and, according to sources in the government, has engaged in widespread torture of dissidents.

An army spokesman denied that the government had secretly conducted any killings “as far as I know.” But several senior army and government officers, some of whom are Abacha appointees, confirmed the executions.

“You are linked with the plot, you get killed, simple as that,” one top intelligence official said of the executions, which he regarded as just punishment for accused coup plotters. “Why should they not be killed?”

During a weeklong investigation, Newsday interviewed several residents of a workers’ compound. All recalled seeing an army convoy rumble past and head for the woods. Two of the trucks, witnesses said, were filled with handcuffed soldiers whose bloodied faces indicated they had been severely beaten.

“Later we started hearing the sound of guns,” said one resident. “I said, ‘what is happening?’ When the lorries returned later, everybody stayed in their house, because we were fearing for our lives.”

Col. Fred Chijuka, the army spokesman, said accounts of secret executions were untrue. “To me, it is just not possible that senior people can be executed like that,” he said. But he hedged his denials by adding, “We are relying on official information, and sometimes these things go far before we know about them.”

Last month, Abacha said there had been a coup attempt but insisted that all those accused would be charged and tried under Nigerian law.