Kanu’s British Lawyer Questions British Envoy

Bruce Fein, the international counsel and spokesman for the Indigenous People of Biafra leader, Nnamdi Kanu, has accused the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing, of complicity in the non-release of Kanu by the Federal Government of Nigeria.

In a letter to Laing, titled ‘Sabotage of Immediate, Unconditional Release of UK citizen Nnamdi Kanu pursuant U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention Opinion No. 25/2022’ Fein said, “evidence has surfaced that you personally are sabotaging Mr. Kanu’s unconditional release as mandated under jus cogens norms of international law binding on all nations irrespective of consent.  You have taken cynicism and hypocrisy to a new level.”

The statement further reads, “On July 20, 2022, the United Nations Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued a unanimous opinion addressing United Kingdom citizen Nnamdi Kanu’s kidnapping, torture, extraordinary rendition, and protracted detention without trial by Nigeria acting in collusion with Kenya.

“Among other things, the Working Group Opinion called upon Nigeria ‘to take urgent action to ensure the immediate unconditional release of Mr. Kanu’.  Paragraph 107.

“The opinion cataloged the serial human rights violations of Nigeria and Kenya regarding Mr. Kanu: ‘The deprivation of liberty…in contravention of articles 2, 3, 7, 8, 9,10, 11, and 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and articles 2, 9, 13, 14, 16, 19, and 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights….’ Paragraph 105.

“Your government has taken extreme umbrage at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s violation of international law in attacking Ukraine and committing war crimes.

“But you have made the UK complicit in flouting international law like Mr. Putin by affirmatively encouraging the government of Nigeria to continue its illegal detention of Nnamdi Kanu. What is your ulterior motive? Oil and gas for the United Kingdom? Lucrative UK business arrangements?

“You and your country plunged to new depths.  You go to war over the Falkland Islands thousands of miles from English shores with a tiny population of 3,500 to keep them free from Argentinian misgovernment.  But Nnamdi Kanu, a British citizen, is abandoned to the cruel, lawless dungeon of Nigeria’s DSS.

“Have you no sense of decency?  Have you a heart of stone unmoved by monumental injustice?,” Fein queried the commissioner.