Nigerian accused of taking $ 300,000 from al Qaeda

ABUJA, Jan 17 (Reuters) Nigerian prosecutors have accused a media company director of taking 300,000 dollars from al Qaeda in 2002 to arrange combat training in Mauritania for 17 members of a group called the Nigerian Taliban.

Muhammed Damagun pleaded not guilty yesterday to three charges of terrorism. The case relates to a short-lived spate of attacks in 2003 and 2004 by the self-styled Nigerian Taliban, a group of reclusive Islamists in the far north of Nigeria.

''That you ... being a member of an illegal terrorist organisation known and called 'the Nigerian Taliban' ...

received the sum of 300,000 dollars from a terrorist organisation (known and called Alqaeda World Network, Sudan),'' said the charge sheet obtained by Reuters today.

It said Damagun received the money in late 2002 and used it between August and September 2003 to recruit and sponsor 17 other members of the Taliban to train in Mauritania in a place named as ''Ummul Qurah Islamic Camp''.

The little-known Taliban launched a series of armed attacks on police stations and government offices in the remote northeastern states of Yobe and Borno at the end of 2003 and early 2004.

This prompted a massive military crackdown in which at least 20 people were killed and several others captured. The Taliban, who said they were pushing for an Islamic state in Africa's top oil producing country, have hardly been heard of since then.

Damagun was also accused of providing money, a bus and 30 loudspeakers to another member of the Taliban in late 2006 ''in order to facilitate the spread of extremism and various acts and techniques on terrorism''.

Damagun is a director of the company that publishes one of the largest selling newspapers in northern Nigeria, the Daily Trust. He was granted bail and the case will resume on February 24.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, is split about evenly between Muslims and Christians. The northern half of the country is predominantly Muslim although significant Christian minorities live there.

The two major religions coexist peacefully most of the time although inter-religious violence sometimes breaks out. These conflicts are often intertwined with land, ethnic and political disputes.

In 2003 al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden included Nigeria in a list of six countries he said he wanted to see liberated from enslavement to Washington.

REUTERS MS HT1547