One of the two Iranians connected with the controversial shipment of arms and ammunition to the Apapa Port in Lagos, has fled to Iran.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Odein Ajumogobia (SAN), who made this known on Tuesday, said the suspect, left Nigeria with the delegation of the Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki.
He told journalists before leaving New York, United States, where he addressed a United Nations Security Council meeting on Sudan, that Mottaki refused his request to quiz the suspect before he (suspect) fled the country.
According to him, the Iranian foreign minister hinged his refusal on the fact that the suspect had diplomatic immunity.
He said, “I sought from the foreign minister, an access to interview him, but he was not willing to do that. He (the suspect) ... went back on the foreign minister’s delegation.”
Ajumogobia said he had asked Mottaki to wave the Iranian’s diplomatic status, but he declined to do so.
“I asked the Iranian foreign minister to give access to the diplomat for what it was worth. There were two Iranians mentioned. The facts came to life through discussions with Mottaki, that the other one is a diplomat.”
Mottaki had on Monday said in Tehran that the ‘misunderstanding’ between the two countries over the arms shipment had been resolved.
He told journalists after his brief visit to Nigeria last week, he had cleared the way for Nigerian interrogators to quiz the second Iranian suspect.
Asked to respond to this claim, Ajumogobia said Mottaki must have been referring to how he (Mottaki) facilitated access to the second suspect at the Iranian embassy in Abuja.
He recalled that he had asked the Iranian minister to direct his country’s then Ambassador to Nigeria, Hussein Abdullahi, to grant access to the two suspects “but that did not happen in almost a week.
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