Amnesty International on Monday slammed the reinstatement of a senior Nigerian army officer it wants probed for war crimes and the mass murder of detainees in the fight against Boko Haram.
The rights group in June said Major General Ahmadu Mohammed along with eight other senior commanders should be investigated into their possible criminal responsibility for war crimes, including the deaths of more than 8 000 detainees.
It said there was sufficient evidence for the International Criminal Court, based in The Hague, to take up the case.
Amnesty said Mohammed was in charge of 7 Division of the army when the military allegedly executed more than 640 detainees after Boko Haram Islamists attacked the detention centre in Giwa barracks, Maiduguri, capital of the restive northeastern state of Borno on March 14 2014.
The London-based body said Mohammed was retired in 2014 for unrelated reasons, but that it received news of his reinstatement on January 17. "Major General Mohammed must be investigated for participating in, sanctioning or failing to prevent the deaths of hundreds of people," said Salil Shetty, Amnesty's secretary general in a statement on Monday.
"Young men and boys, rounded up by the military, were either shot, starved, suffocated or tortured to death and no one has yet been held to account.
"It is unthinkable that Major General Mohammed could resume command of troops before an investigation has even begun."
"Seven months after the publication of these horrific discoveries and the (Nigerian) President's pledge that they will be looked into, we continue to call for urgent independent investigations to begin," said Shetty.
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