Military ruler's aide to be prosecuted

The top security aide to the late Nigerian military ruler, General Sani Abacha, will be prosecuted, AFP quoted a spokesman for President Olusegun Obasanjo as saying on Wednesday. Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, chief security officer under Abacha, has been in detention since shortly after Abacha died in June last year but has yet to be formally charged with any offence. Obasanjo's spokesman, Doyin Okupe, did not say on what charges Mustapha would be prosecuted, AFP said. "Mustapha and others who might have been involved in crime will be prosecuted," at the end of an investigation underway into their actions, Okupe said in a live interview on a local television station, AIT. Media reports have linked Mustapha to some of the human rights violations, assassinations and harassment and torture of opposition figures during the Abacha regime which lasted from late 1994 to mid-1998.