BIAFRA agitator, Simon Ekpa, has appealled his terrorism conviction and sentence at a Finnish higher court.
This is even as the Finnish prosecutor handling his case is demanding a longer prison sentence, arguing that the six-year jail term was not enough for terrorism charges.
The BBC Pidgin reported that the Finnish Court of Appeal was set to hear the appeal in the next three weeks.
Recall that in November 2024, Ekpa was arrested by law enforcement in Finland and later charged to court for inciting terrorism and participating in the activities of a terrorist group.
In September last year, the Päijät-Häme District Court sentenced him to six years in prison for terrorism offences, having found him guilty of inciting terrorism and participating in the activities of a terrorist group.
The court held that Ekpa was an influential member of a militant separatist movement whose goal was to actualise the carving out of a Biafra state from Nigeria and had used his “significant social media following” to stoke tensions in Nigeria’s Southeast between August 2021 and November 2024.
It also ruled that Ekpa had supplied certain groups with weapons, explosives and ammunition “through his network of contacts in the region, and he was also found to have encouraged his followers on social media platform X, to commit crimes in Nigeria.”
The self-acclaimed disciple of Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) was also convicted of aggravated tax fraud and violating the provisions of the Attorneys Act.
Ekpa was designated a “terrorism financier” by the Federal Government in March last year.
