A court docket in Nigeria has discovered separatist chief Nnamdi Kanu responsible of terrorism following a decade-long authorized case stuffed with drama.
The court docket stated it was happy that Kanu had made a sequence of broadcasts to incite violence and killings, as a part of his marketing campaign for a separate state in south-east Nigeria, generally known as Biafra.
Kanu has been convicted on all seven costs he confronted – in addition to terrorism, they included treason and involvement with an outlawed motion.
The court docket has adjourned, with the choose anticipated handy down a sentencing afterward Thursday. Kanu might face the demise penalty, though that is not often carried out in Nigeria.
Kanu all the time denied the fees and challenged the court docket’s jurisdiction to place him on trial.
As soon as a comparatively obscure determine, he got here to nationwide prominence in 2009 when he began Radio Biafra, a station that known as for an impartial state for the Igbo folks, broadcast to Nigeria from London.
Although he grew up in south-eastern Nigeria, the place he attended the College of Nsukka, Kanu moved to the UK earlier than graduating, and bought British nationality.
In 2014, he arrange the Indigenous Folks Of Biafra (Ipob), a motion demanding independence.
Ipob was banned as a terrorist organisation in 2017. Its armed wing – the Jap Safety Community – has been accused of killings and different acts of violence lately.
Delivering his judgement, Choose James Omotosho stated: “Mr Kanu knew what he was doing, he was bent on finishing up these threats with out consideration to his personal folks.
“From the incontroverted proof, it’s clear that the defendant carried out preparatory act of terrorism.
“He had the obligation to clarify himself however failed to take action.”
Kanu is a well-liked determine in his motion’s heartland in south-eastern Nigeria, however response to the decision there has thus far been muted.
In court docket forward of the ruling, Kanu insisted that proceedings couldn’t proceed as a result of he had not but filed his ultimate written handle, accusing the choose of bias and never understanding the regulation.
The judgement was delivered after Kanu had been forcibly faraway from the courtroom for unruly behaviour.
He was first arrested in October 2015 however he jumped bail in 2017 and left the nation after a army raid on his house. The court docket later revoked his bail in March 2019.
Two years later, the federal government introduced that he had been re-arrested. His attorneys say he was detained in Kenya and forcibly returned to Nigeria. Kenya has not commented.
In 2022, an attraction court docket ordered that the fees towards him be dropped, saying he had been illegally arrested overseas, however this ruling was overturned by the Supreme Courtroom the next yr.
The requires Biafran independence date again a few years.
In 1967 Igbo leaders declared a Biafran state, however after a brutal civil conflict, which led to the deaths of as much as one million folks, the secessionist insurrection was defeated.
Many Igbo folks proceed to really feel that they’re marginalised by the Nigerian state nonetheless, it isn’t clear what number of are in favour of independence.
Further reporting from BBC Igbo’s Ebere Ekeopara in Enugu
