Stephen Ukandu, Umuahia
Mr. Bruce Fein, the international lawyer to the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPoB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has written to Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court, Abuja, urging him to dismiss Kanu’s ongoing trial “for lack of jurisdiction.”
The American-born international attorney, in a letter dated October 28, which was sighted by Ikengaonline, argued against the further prosecution of Kanu in any Nigerian court, considering the illegal manner in which he was “abducted and renditioned to Nigeria.”
According to Fein, the illegality of Kanu’s abduction and extraordinary rendition from Kenya has rendered his continued trial “illegal and unnecessary.”
Fein said the government should not be a beneficiary of its own act of illegality, as doing so amounts to a breach of international law.
“No government should profit from its own criminality; that has been binding law from time immemorial,” the letter read in part.
It further read: “Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. Nothing is more unjust than a government profiting from its own crimes. Legendary United States Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis instructed in Olmstead v. United States (1928):
‘In a government of laws, the existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.
‘Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.
‘To declare that, in the administration of the criminal law, the end justifies the means — to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal — would bring terrible retribution.’”
Fein recalled that both the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and Nigerian courts “have determined that the Federal Government of Nigeria committed multiple crimes in forcibly bringing Mazi Nnamdi Kanu within this court’s putative jurisdiction.”
“Government’s crimes include kidnapping, torture, and extraordinary rendition,” Fein alleged, adding that “these are universal jus cogens crimes under international law binding on Nigeria with or without its consent.”
According to him, the above breaches “oust Nigerian courts of jurisdiction to prosecute Mr. Kanu to prevent the Government of Nigeria from profiting from its own crimes.”
Citing the UN Working Group’s report (paragraph 107 of its July 20, 2022 opinion), which directed “the immediate and unconditional release of Mr. Kanu by the Government of Nigeria,” Fein accused the Nigerian Government of flouting international law.
Noting that violations of universal laws could lead to prosecution before the International Criminal Court, Fein urged Justice Omotosho to extricate himself from “the illegal prosecution of Kanu.”
“Following orders is no defense to universal crimes. If you refrain from dismissing all outstanding charges against Mr. Kanu for lack of jurisdiction, you will be legally implicated in the crimes perpetrated by the Government of Nigeria in bringing Mr. Kanu before your tribunal.
“You will be vulnerable to prosecution before the International Criminal Court. You will have been unfaithful to your professional duty to see that justice is done.”
