Court to rule on Okah trial

By Upstream staff 

A Nigerian court will decide next week whether authorities can try Henry Okah, a factional leader from the rebel group the Movemenet for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend), in secret, a court source said.

The decision to try Okah in secret has angered Mend militants, who have launched a series of attacks in recent days.

Lawyers defending Okah filed a motion yesterday at the Federal High Court in the central city of Jos, challenging the order for a secret trial, a Reuters report said.

Okah, who was arrested in Angola last September and extradited to Nigeria in February, has been charged with treason and gun-running and stands accused of conspiring to wage war on Nigeria. He faces the death penalty if convicted.

"The defence argued ... that there was no point in a secret trial since most of the 47 charges against Okah have already been published in the media and the internet," a court source, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

The judge would rule on the issue on 2 May, the source said.

Nigerian authorities say holding the trial in public could provoke unrest.

The defence had previously said the order to try Okah in secret was an infringement of his rights. Lawyers handling the case are barred from making details of the hearings public.

The rebel leader's detention in a secret location and the planned secret trial have angered militants in the Delta and hampered government efforts to make peace with them. Okah still commands loyalty from several rebel factions in the region.

Mend, which resumed violent attacks on the oil industry last week, sabotaged two Shell pipelines on Monday, in what it called an act of defiance against the US, a major oil consumer whose navy is currently conducting joint training with the Nigerian navy.

The strikes followed a similar attack last Thursday which forced Shell to shut 169,000 barrels per day of oil output and declare force majeure on Bonny Light crude exports for the rest of April and May.

Militants had previously said they wanted to see how Okah's trial was conducted before resuming their armed struggle. The latest unrest has heightened fears about supply disruption and helped push world oil prices to new record highs.

The group's 2006 campaign of bombings of oil facilities and kidnappings of foreign oil workers forced the closure of a fifth of crude output from Nigeria.

23 April 2008 14:16 GMT  | last updated: 23 April 2008 14:16 GMT