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From Ogbonnaya Ndukwe, Aba
Igbo Lawyers Association (ILA) has advised the Federal Government to accept the judgement of the Appeal Court which discharged and acquitted leader of Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, from treason charges it levelled against him.
The group said government could not continue to hold onto Kanu without letting him go after the ruling of the Appeal Court that his extraordinary rendition from Kenya last year and sending him on trial was illegal.
Abia State Coordinator of ILA, Victor Onweremadu, told Daily Sun that the view of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, on the matter amounted to contempt of court.
“That is wrong and can amount to a contempt arriving from disobedience to court judgement. As long as Nnamdi Kanu is in Nigeria through that forceful abduction, there can be no more trial on the matter because the trial court is barred,” he averred.
Onweremadu, who was vice chairman, Aba branch of the NBA, posited that holding Kanu in custody, defies known laws as even an appeal to a higher court does not amount to a stay of execution, arguing that the matter in question was a criminal one and not a civil case.
He explained that legal process of stay of execution, applies only in civil matters, but not in criminal matters, hence there was no basis to continue holding the appellant in custody.
A Court of Appeal, sitting in Abuja, had last Thursday, discharged and acquitted the IPOB leader, on charges of treason and terrorism, levelled against him by the Nigerian government.
The Court held that the Federal Government flouted the Terrorism Act and Violated all known International Conventions and Treaties guiding extra process, and thus breaching the rights of the appellant.
It further held that having illegally and forcefully renditioned Kanu to Nigeria from a foreign land, the trial court was stripped of jurisdiction to continue his trial.
