This article explores the construction of terrorism via evidentiary practices, through the examination of terrorism trials in Nigeria. By conceptualising legal evidence – or evidencing – as a juridical practice of truth-making, the article contributes to the growing stream of critical literature on terrorism trials, and pre-emptive security more broadly, by examining the production of terrorism knowledge in light of the dominant pre-crime rationality that typically underpins counte-terrorism practice. The article highlights the complex processes and practices involved in the making of juridical truth in court and criminal justice processes, and how this enables the production and contestation of terrorism.

The article utilises important works on truth-making, alongside the contemporary literature on terrorism trials, to develop its theoretical and methodological approach. The empirical data for this study include court documents of terrorism cases in Nigeria, including those from the so-called Kainji trials, which emerged from fieldwork conducted in Abuja, Nigeria in 2020. The article demonstrates the productivity of legal evidence in the context of terrorism trials, involving different truth-makers, narratives, techniques, temporalities, and rationalities. In doing so, the article therefore contributes to the problematisation of terrorism and related issues of pre-emption, as well as the discussion on truth-making, by illustrating how the production of legal truth is shaped by different narratives, material practices, and logics in terrorism trials.