Nigeria: justice frees dozens of Shiites imprisoned since 2015

More than four years after their incarceration, 87 members of a radical Shiite group in Nigeria, accused of being responsible for the death of a soldier during a religious rally that turned into a bloodbath in December 2015, have were released on Friday February 21, their lawyer said.

The northern Kaduna city court "dismissed and acquitted" members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (MIN), saying there was not enough evidence to convict them of the death of the soldier, Haruna Magashi told AFP.

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"This puts an end to years of judicial battle, waged against the government of the state of Kaduna, which had indicted nearly 200 members of the MIN after the attack of the army against " our " procession in December 2015", a argued the spokesman for the movement in a press release issued following the court decision.

The Nigerian army opened fire on a Shiite procession, accusing MIN members of trying to ambush the army chief in Zaria, the city in which the Shiites are based. Nearly 350 Shiites, most of them unarmed, were then killed and buried in mass graves by soldiers, and hundreds of others were arrested, including the leader of the movement Ibrahim Zakzaky, as well as his wife. An official report from Kaduna State later acknowledged that the military had acted disproportionately and that the soldiers involved should be punished, but none were ever prosecuted.

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In 2019, more than 100 detainees have already been released, but Zakzaky and his wife Zeenat are still behind bars for intentional homicide, although in 2016 a federal court ordered their release. MIN's lawyer said he would continue to press for the release of the Shiite leader. "We will now focus our attention on the trial of Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky," said Magashi.

The MIN, which appeared as a student movement in 1978 before becoming a radical group, is still close to Tehran today and arouses great hostility in Nigeria, where the Sunni Muslim elite does not hide its affinities with Saudi Arabia . The group's manifestations are regularly checked in the blood.

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