Catriona Laing personally sabotaging efforts to free Kanu, US lawyer alleges
By Steve Oko
Bruce Fein, international lawyer and Spokesman for the detained Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has accused the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing,of personally sabotaging efforts to free Kanu from illegal detention.
Wawa News Global reports that the IPOB Leader has remained illegally obtained at the Abuja headquarters of the Department of State Services, DSS, since June 2021 when he was extraordinarily renditioned from Kenya.
Peeved by his continued detention against court orders and the Opinion of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Fein accused Britain and her envoy to Nigeria of complicity and criminal silence.
The US Attorney expressed surprise that Britain which is spearheading the international offensive against Russian for invading Ukraine, is silent and nonchalant over the plight of Kanu, a British citizen kept behind the bars illegally.
Below is a full text of the letter dated February 10, and made available to Wawa News Global:
“RE: Sabotage of Immediate, Unconditional Release of U.K. citizen Nnamdi Kanu pursuant U.N.
Working Group on Arbitrary Detention Opinion No. 25/2022.
“Dear High Commissioner:
On July 20, 2022, the United Nations Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued a unanimous opinion addressing United Kingdom citizen Nnamdi Kanu’s kidnapping, torture, extraordinary rendition, and protracted detention without trial by Nigeria acting in collusion with Kenya. Among other things, the Working Group Opinion called upon Nigeria “to take urgent action to ensure the immediate unconditional release of Mr. Kanu.”
“Paragraph 107 of the Opinion cataloged the serial human rights violations of Nigeria and Kenya regarding Mr. Kanu: “The deprivation of liberty…in contravention of articles 2, 3, 7, 8, 9,10, 11, and 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and articles 2, 9, 13, 14, 16, 19, and 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights….” Paragraph 105.
“Evidence has surfaced that you personally are sabotaging Mr. Kanu’s unconditional release as mandated under jus cogens norms of international law binding on all nations irrespective of
consent. You have taken cynicism and hypocrisy to a new level.
“Your Government has taken extreme umbrage at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s violation of international law in attacking Ukraine and committing war crimes. But you have made the UK
complicit in flouting international law like Mr. Putin by affirmatively encouraging the Government of Nigeria to continue its illegal detention of Nnamdi Kanu.
” What is your ulterior
motive? Oil and gas for the United Kingdom? Lucrative UK business arrangements?
“You and your country plunged to new depths. You go to war over the Falkland Islands thousands of miles from English shores with a tiny population of 3,500 to keep them free from Argentinian misgovernment. But Nnamdi Kanu, a British citizen, is abandoned to the cruel,
lawless dungeon of Nigeria’s DSS.
“Have you no sense of decency? Have you a heart of stone unmoved by monumental injustice?”
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