Abacha died of heart attack, wasn’t poisoned – Ex-DSS director

A former Assistant Director of the Department of State Services (DSS), Dennis Amachree, has said former Head of State, General Sani Abacha, died of a heart attack, contrary to widespread claims that he was poisoned.

Amachree insisted that evidence pointed to the fact that Abacha died of a heart attack.

Abacha died on June 8, 1998, while serving as Nigeria’s Head of State, and there have been different accounts of his death.

In an interview on TVC News, Amachree said investigators questioned a woman who was reportedly with Abacha shortly before he died, describing her account as the only direct eyewitness testimony of what happened in the room.

According to him, the woman arrived at the residence with her sister, who was said to know the former Head of State.

“The girl who was with him when he died was later brought to me for questioning. When she entered my office, the first thing she said was, ‘I did not kill him.’ She was very direct about it.

“I had to believe her because she had no reason to lie to me. I did not create an atmosphere that would make her feel threatened.

“Her account remains the only true eyewitness account of what happened because nobody else was in that room with them.

“From everything she told me and from what I gathered during the investigation, I strongly believe it was a heart attack. She did not know he was dead while she was with him, but later realised something was wrong. In my assessment, his death was the result of a heart attack,” he stated.

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Abacha died of heart attack, wasn’t poisoned – Ex-DSS director