Posted on: 12:51 Sat, 26 Jul 2014



According to the report, a military court in Cameroon has handed down prison sentences of up to 20 years to the insurgents arrested in March this year.

The defendants, who were allegedly caught with weapons cache, admitted to being part of the Nigerian extremist group at a “public hearing” in the northern town of Maroua.

It was gathered that the terrorists were charged with illegal possession of firearms, ammunition and of plotting an insurrection.

“Each of the Boko Haram members (was) sentenced to between 10 and 20 years” in prison, said the report, adding that the sentences cannot be appealed.

The trial was reportedly the first of its kind in Cameroon where a large number of members of the radical group have been arrested in the north over the past weeks following attacks on police stations, as well as kidnappings and killings.

* Cameroonian soldiers

“We are worried about infiltrations” by the Islamists among the refugees, a police officer in the town said.

In a related development, Cameroon has also reported the killing of its two soldiers by Boko Haram gunmen, after a crossborder raid on Thursday, 24 July, 2014.
It was gathered that the attack occurred late Thursday in the border village of Balgaram in northern Cameroon.

* Boko Haram insurgents

It would be recalled that the Boko Haram sect is seeking to install an extremist Islamic state in Nigeria and it has started its bloody insurgency in 2009.

More than 3,000 Nigerians fleeing Boko Haram attacks have taken refuge in the Cameroon town of Fotokol, according to a municipal official.

The Cameroonian government has been deploying troops to villages near the Nigerian border for the past weeks.

The insurgents group is reported to have killed thousands of people across Nigeria since 2009.