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Court Orders El-Zakzaky’s Transfer To Correctional Facility

December 5, 2019

Since his arrest and the proscription of the movement in Kaduna, there have been several fatal clashes in Abuja, much of it triggered by the police.

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A High Court in Kaduna State on Thursday ordered that leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, and his wife Zeenat, be transferred to a prison facility in the state.

Justice Gideon Kurada said the couple should be moved to the Nigerian Correctional Centre to allow him gain easy access to his lawyers.

The trial had been held up for eight months following Kurada’s service in the presidential and National Assembly election tribunal.

News Agency of Nigeria reports that the judge’s directive was the offshoot of an application by El-Zakzaky’s counsel, Haruna Magashi, at the resumption of hearing since its indefinite postponement on April 25.

Zeenat and her husband have been in the care of the Department of State Services since an attack on his home and other Shia sites in Kaduna in December 2015.

They are being accused of culpable homicide, unlawful assembly and disruption of the public peace, among other charges.

The couple made a botched attempt to get treatment from lead poisoning as a result of gunshot wounds in India but were immediately brought back home over claims that El-Zakzaky was trying to jump bail.

Since his arrest and the proscription of the movement in Kaduna, there have been several fatal clashes in Abuja, much of it triggered by the police.

One of such led to the death of a journalist from Channels Television.