THE Lead Counsel to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Aloy Ejimakor, has accused the Department of State Service (DSS) of flouting a court order by refusing to allow Kanu meet with his lawyers in a secret room, as ordered by Justice Binta Murtala-Nyako of a Federal High Court in Abuja.
Recall that Justice Murtala-Nyako had on May 20 ordered the DSS to allow Kanu meet with up to five lawyers as a Team, not separately, as was done before, in a secret room to prepare for his trial, while ruling on an “Order modifying the conditions of Counsel visitation to Kanu,” which Ejimakor said was aimed at expanding the opportunity for Kanu’s lawyers to “adequately prepare him for trial in a way that would ensure he gets a fair trial.
The Judge ruled that such consulting consultation be done in a “private room” at the DSS complex, where Kanu is being held.
However, in a statement, dated May 23, Ejimakor, on behalf of Kanu’s legal team, said: “Consequently, after duly notifying the DSS with names of the four Lawyers billed to meet with Kanu today, the lawyers timely presented themselves at the DSS earlier today to meet with Kanu as a group or together, but the DSS refused, insisting that the lawyers must meet with Kanu separately.
“To be sure, this is a flagrant disobedience of the court order. This latest development affirms the point we have been making in court that continuing to detain Kanu at the DSS constitutes a permanent hindrance to any prospect of getting a fair trial for him.
“This is the reason we had filed applications to either restore his bail, transfer him to prison custody or to home detention, but the court refused all the applications.
“Additionally, the room where the lawyers were separately taken to meet with Kanu is an office of a senior officer of the DSS and hardly qualifies as a private room that is presumably free from any secret monitoring devices, which is the case with the interrogation room where Kanu previously met with his lawyers.
“The court order gave leave to the lawyers to enter with books and to take notes from briefings with Kanu, but in addition to disallowing team visitation, the DSS also disallowed our entry into the room with papers and collected our eye glasses, such that some of us could not read the provisions of the extant laws to which Kanu adverted us as crucial to preparing his defence.
“For the foregoing reasons, we have come to the only reasonable conclusion emanating from this anomalous situation, and that is: the prosecution, which is pushing for an accelerated trial is either unserious or that it wants an accelerated kangaroo trial, lacking in any scintilla of fair play.”
