A federal court in Abuja has sentenced four men to death for a 2022 attack on a Catholic church in Owo, Ondo state (a south-western Nigerian state), in which armed assailants killed worshippers during Sunday Mass. The four — Idris Abdulmalik Omeiza, Al Qasim Idris, Jamiu Abdulmalik, and Abdulhaleem Idris — were also handed 20-year prison terms for membership of a terrorist organisation, while a fifth co-defendant was acquitted due to insufficient evidence. The verdict, which the defendants' lawyer said would be appealed, marks a rare judicial reckoning in a country grappling with escalating attacks on religious communities, though any execution would still require presidential assent, and Nigeria has not carried out executions in several years.