A Spanish High Court judge said Thursday he is opening a probe into Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram and its leader Abubakar Shekau for suspected crimes against humanity and terrorism.
The charges are over a 2013 attack on a Nigerian town in which a Spanish nun was assaulted, court papers said.
Judge Fernando Andreu ruled he is competent to handle the case under the principle of universal jurisdiction since it concerns a Spanish nun and no other investigation into the affair is under way.
Spanish public prosecutors argued in their lawsuit, which was accepted by the judge, that the attack was part of “a generalised context of actions of a terrorist nature by the jihadist organisation”.
For Spain to carry out universal jurisdiction, there must be a Spanish connection such as a Spanish victim or perpetrator. In the Boko Haram case, the state prosecutor used the fact there was a Spanish victim to bring a generic charge of crimes against humanity and terrorism, a court source said.
Spain has pioneered the use of universal jurisdiction, the concept that crimes against humanity can be prosecuted across borders, in instances such as when a Spanish judge issued an arrest warrant for Chile’s Augusto Pinochet in London in 1998.
