(FILES) This file handout video grab released by Islamist militants group Boko Haram on January 15, 2018 shows at least 14 of the schoolgirls abducted from the northeast Nigerian town of Chibok in April 2014. AFP PHOTO
Abuja: A Nigerian court has released 475 people allegedly affiliated with Boko Haram for rehabilitation, the Justice Ministry said on Sunday,
The first person convicted for the kidnapping in 2014 of Chibok schoolgirls, sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment last week, was also handed an addition 15-year sentence, to run back-to-back, the justice ministry said in a statement.
Also freed were two mechanics, identical twins who were arrested in Bauchi State in 2010 after servicing a vehicle at their workshop which belonged to a Boko Haram member.
More than 20,000 people have been killed and two million forced to flee their homes in northeastern Nigeria since Boko Haram began an insurgency in 2009.
Some of those whose cases were heard last week in a detention centre in central Nigeria had been held without trial since 2010, according to the justice ministry statement.
In October, the ministry said 45 people suspected of Boko Haram links had been convicted and jailed. A further 468 suspects were discharged and 28 suspects were remanded for trial in Abuja or Minna.
