The legal team said this on Friday after it was at the DSS headquarters, saying such denial was in flagrant disregard to the orders of the court and in desperate efforts to frustrate every prospect of fair trial for Mazi Kanu.
The legal team of the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has raised the alarm that Nigeria's secret police, the Department of State Services (DSS), has denied the team access to Kanu to prepare him for the trial selected for June 19 and 20.
The legal team said this on Friday after it was at the DSS headquarters, saying such denial was in flagrant disregard to the orders of the court and in desperate efforts to frustrate every prospect of fair trial for Mazi Kanu.
The legal team disclosed this in a statement issued on Friday after it was denied access to meet with the IPOB leader, who has been in detention since June 2021 after he was renditioned to Nigeria from Kenya.
Titled: "As the hearing date draws near, the DSS continues to hinder Nnamdi Kanu’s right to fair trial," and signed by Aloy Ejimakor, Esq for the Legal Team, the team described the disobedience of a subsisting court order by the DSS as symbolic of what has become an executive self-indictment of the trial that the government itself and the Court insist must take place.
"As the next hearing or trial of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s case scheduled for 19th and 20th June 2024 looms close, the State Security Services (DSS) continues on its infamous path of frustrating every prospect of fair trial for Mazi Kanu," the statement noted.
"Today, being 14th June 2024, the DSS once again exhibited its vested disrespect for judicial pronouncements when it (in disobedience of court order) refused Mazi Kanu’s legal team to meet with him as a team (or together) to prepare him for the said hearing/trial, commencing on 19th June.
"The DSS insisted that members of the legal team (including the undersigned Counsel) must meet with Mazi Kanu separately or we must leave the premises. For this reason, Mazi Kanu’s team of lawyers left the DSS facility without seeing him, a situation that will surely complicate the hearing on 19th June.
"This latest disobedience of a subsisting court order by the DSS is symbolic of what has become an executive self-indictment of the trial that the government itself and the Court insist must take place."
The legal team warned that they will resist any trial that is against the tenets of the Constitution, wondering why the Attorney General and Minister for justice (AGF) still bent on prosecuting the case when the government could not obey a simple court order that is directly geared to giving them the trial they so much desire.
"If they do not obey a simple court order that is directly geared to giving them the trial they so much desire, why then is the AGF still bent on prosecuting the case? Are we to believe that it is only a sham trial that they secretly desire? To be sure, it is impossible to prosecute a case without having the ingredients of a fair hearing in place.
"These antics are further evidence that the case against Mazi Kanu has no merit, hence the reason every avenue for a fair hearing is being blocked.
"If the AGF through the DSS are apprehensive of the fell consequences of a fair trial, then they need to do the needful by discontinuing this case without further ado. Otherwise, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and his legal team will resist any trial that is against the tenets of the Constitution," the team insisted.