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Says Appeal Lacks Merit
- Safiu Kehinde
The Court of Appeal in Abuja has on Friday struck out an appeal filed by the Indigenous People of Biafra’s (IPOB) leader, Nnamdi Kanu, challenging conviction for terrorism.
NPO Reported that Kanu was last week convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment after the Abuja Federal High Court found him guilty of all counts in the terrorism charge filed against him.
His legal counsels had however to challenge the ruling before the appellate court.
In effect, the counsels had opened an appeal before the court, alleging violations of Kanu’s fundamental rights.
According to reports, three-member panel of the appellate court assigned to the appeal maintained that the IPOB leader’s claims of breaches to his rights to human dignity, quality health care, and religion during his detention by the Department of State Services (DSS) were no longer actionable after his conviction and life imprisonment sentence by a Federal High Court.
They maintained the case lacks merit and academic following his conviction for terrorism.
The Justice Boloukuromo Ugo-led panel noted that the substance of the appeal became academic when Kanu’s lawyer, Maxwell Opara, confirmed at proceedings that his client was being held in Sokoto prison.
Boloukuromo said the court could no longer approve Kanu’s request to be relocated to Kuje prison, as he had already been remanded in the facility he preferred.
The appeal challenged a July 3 ruling by Justice Taiwo Taiwo (now retired) of the Federal High Court in Abuja, which had dismissed Kanu’s fundamental rights enforcement suit for failing to prove his case.
The respondents in the appeal were the Director General of the DSS, the DSS, and the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF).