New York, April 3, 2009 – Today, the judge presiding over the landmark human rights lawsuit Wiwa v. Royal Dutch Petroleum (Shell) ordered the trial postponed from the current April 27, 2009, date. In the case, which concerns the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and other Ogoni leaders and other abuses against the Ogoni people in Nigeria, Chief Judge Kimba Wood of the Southern District of New York ordered that the trial would be continued until May 26, 2009.
The plaintiffs in the case look forward to their day in court, when Shell will be held accountable for its complicity in severe human rights abuses. The case, filed in 1996, is being brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights and EarthRights International and other human rights lawyers, on behalf of relatives of murdered activists. The case charges the defendants with complicity in the November 10, 1995, hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa and other leaders opposed to Shell’s pattern of human rights and environmental abuses in the Niger Delta. The case also include claims for the torture, detention, and forced exile of Mr. Saro-Wiwa’s brother, Dr. Owens Wiwa, and Michael Tema Vizor; and the shooting of Karololo Kogbara and Uebari N-nah in two earlier attacks on peaceful protestors by Nigerian military.
For more information about the case, please visit www.WiwavShell.org
CONTACT: David Lerner, Riptide Communications (212-260-5000 or (917) 612-5656
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