A court in Abuja on Tuesday charged five foreigners and three Nigerians with espionage, court documents showed.
They all pleaded not guilty to a 12-count espionage charge.
Romanian Bogdam Dumitrescu, 50, Israeli Eliav Hommossany, 46, Irishman James Nolan, 40, and the three Nigerians were present in court when the charges were read out to them at the Federal High Court in Abuja.
Two other foreigners – Irishman Michael Quinn, 65, and Russian Nikolay Salnikov, 51, still at large, were also charged.
The Nigerians, all officials of the headquarters of the Ministry of Defence are Vincent Mathew Shigrut, 39, Godwin Aboh, 47, and Samuel Okogie, 35.
Shigrut was particularly accused of unlawfully obtaining, reproducing and retaining classified matter, “with intent to transmit same (secret documents) to the Defence Attache to the Russian Embassy in Nigeria upon his request”.
The identity of the Russian diplomat was not revealed in the charge sheet.
The accused allegedly committed the offences between January 2004 and June 2006.
According to the charge sheet, the three Nigerians were accused of, without lawful authority, obtaining, reproducing, retaining or transmitting “classified matter” to the five foreigners in contravention of the Official Secrets Act of 1990.
The foreigners were charged with engaging Shigrut to “without lawful authority, reproduce and transmit classified matter” from the defence ministry.
Judge Binta Murtala-Nyako remanded the accused in custody and adjourned the matter until November 21. – Sapa-AFP