Nigerian court has thrown out a suit brought by a prominent pro-Iranian Shiite cleric against the military for human rights violations, lawyers in the case told AFP Friday.
\nIbrahim El-Zakzaky was seeking two billion naira ($5.6 million) in damages over clashes with troops in 2015 that left some 350 of his followers dead in the northern city of Zaria.
\nThe cleric himself was injured and his been in custody ever since. Three of his children were killed and his house was destroyed.
\nLawyer Dari Bayero, representing the military, said the case in Kaduna was struck out for abuse of process, \u201cas the same suit was determined by another federal high court in Abuja\u201d.
\n\u201cThe court said the plaintiff (Zakzaky) cannot sue in piecemeal on the same issue at different courts but should consolidate their case in one court,\u201d he added.
\nBut Zakzaky\u2019s lawyer, Haruna Magashi, argued the two cases were fundamentally different and they were studying the judgment before deciding whether to appeal.
\n\u201cThe case before the Abuja federal high court pertains to illegal detention without trial of my client by the DSS (Department of State Services),\u201d he said.
\n\u201cThis particular one is about enforcement of human rights, which by law can only be filed at a court within whose jurisdiction the crime was committed.\u201d
\nZakzaky, who leads the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), has spent nearly 18 months in custody since the clashes on December 14, 2015.
\nA public inquiry in Kaduna state was told in April last year that nearly 350 IMN supporters were buried in a mass grave, backing up similar claims from human rights groups.
\nZakzaky was shot and injured, leaving him partially paralysed and blind in one eye.
\nNigeria\u2019s military has rejected the death toll and claim they are holding the cleric in \u201cprotective custody\u201d.
\nLast December, an Abuja court called the detention of Zakzaky and his followers illegal and unconstitutional and imposed a 45-day deadline for their release.
\nThe government appealed the judgement.
\nMeanwhile, 100 IMN members who were arrested during the unrest in 2015 are standing trial for the alleged murder of a soldier killed in the violence.
\nIMN, which seeks to effect an Iranian-style Islamic revolution in the country\u2019s Sunni Muslim-majority north, has been in conflict with the Nigerian government for years.
\nZakzaky has periodically been imprisoned for alleged incitement and subversion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nigerian court has thrown out a suit brought by a prominent pro-Iranian Shiite cleric against the military for human rights violations, lawyers in the case told AFP Friday. Ibrahim El-Zakzaky was seeking two billion naira ($5.6 million) in damages over clashes with troops in 2015 that left some 350 of his followers dead in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48657,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}