Hostages killed before failed commando raid, say Nigerian police

Nigeria’s secretive State Security Service also said the mastermind of the kidnapping by members of a sect known as Boko Haram died in their custody after suffering gunshot wounds during his arrest before the raid.

The police statement comes nearly a week after the failed rescue operation March 8 by British and Nigerian commandos in Nigeria’s north west city of Sokoto.

It also appears to try to absolve Nigerian authorities of any responsibility over the deaths of Chris McManus and Franco Lamolinara, who were kidnapped in May 2011.

“While the service commiserates with the families of the murdered expatriates, it wishes to reiterate the long arm of the law will surely catch up with terrorists and perpetrators of evil wherever they are,” the statement by the secret police, which has been unable to stop the growing violence surging across Nigeria’s Muslim north, said.

British officials also have blamed a splinter wing of the Boko Haram sect for the abductions, but a sect spokesman has denied the group’s involvement.

Mr McManus and Mr Lamolinara were working for the construction company B.Stabilini when they were kidnapped on May 12 by gunmen who stormed his flat in Birnin-Kebbi.

Information gathered led security forces to a house in Zaria in central Kaduna state on March 7.

A soldier was killed and another sect member led authorities to another house where the hostages were being held, but by then their guards had been tipped off and it was too late to save them.