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This News Service is posted by the
International Secretariat of Amnesty International,
1 Easton Street, London WC1X 8DJ
(Tel +44-71-413-5500, Fax +44-71-956-1157)
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News Service 27/96
AI INDEX : AFR 44/04/96
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 14 FEBRUARY 1996


NIGERIA: OGONI 19 SPECIAL TRIBUNAL SHOULD BE URGENTLY
REFORMED OR DISBANDED


Amnesty International today called on the Nigerian government
to ensure that the special
tribunal due to try the Ogoni 19 conforms to international
fair trial standards, or to
permanently disband it.

      The Federal High Court that was sitting to decide on
the constitutionality of the special tribunal adjourned on
Monday in Lagos. Meanwhile, the fate of the Ogoni 19 remains
unclear.

      ~The Nigerian government should act now to clarify
their fate,~ Amnesty International said. ~If the authorities
are unwilling to quickly reform the special tribunal to meet
in full the criticisms which have been heaped upon it, then
they should permanently disband it.~

      Amnesty International is concerned that the 19 Ogoni
charged with murder in connection with the killings of four
Ogoni in May 1994 may be hastily executed after an unfair
trial.

      ~This special tribunal was responsible for the grossly
unfair trials of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his eight co-defendants
and their subsequent execution,~  the human rights
organization said.

      ~The Nigerian government is virtually alone in refusing
to acknowledge that the trials were a travesty of justice,
flagrantly violating international standards. Yet this is
precisely what the 19 Ogoni still face.~


BACKGROUND

The Civil Disturbances Special Tribunal denied Ken Saro-Wiwa,
President of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni
People (MOSOP) and eight other prisoners crucial rights of
defence, including their rights to be safeguarded from
torture, ill-treatment or improper duress, to be able to
prepare a proper defence and to have full and confidential
access to their defence lawyers, to be tried by an
independent and impartial court and to appeal against the
court's decisions to an independent and higher court.
      Following recent reports that the Ogoni 19 are
suffering under a harsh prison regime in Port Harcourt
Prison, Rivers State, Amnesty International today also called
upon the Nigerian authorities to give assurances that the
Ogoni 19 are being safeguarded from ill-treatment,
health-threatening prison conditions, and are being granted
full access to lawyers, medical care and family visit. One of
their co-detainees, Clement Tusima, died in detention in
August 1995, apparently from untreated diabetes.

      Amnesty International also drew attention today to the
fact that there is strong evidence to suggest that serious
violations of international fair trial standards are endemic
in many of the special tribunals which past and present
military governments have created in Nigeria.

      The military in Nigeria have created a vast edifice of
special tribunals over the past fifteen years, ostensibly to
speed up the process of justice. But many of them gravely
undermine defendants' right to a fair trial in the way they
operate.

      The Civil Disturbances Special Tribunal which is due to
try the Ogoni 19 is just one
of its kind. Other special tribunals suffer from similar
shortcomings. A Civil Disturbances
Special Tribunal which sentenced Zamani Lekwot and others to
death in Kaduna in early 1993
was widely criticized because their trials were unfair; their
death sentences were subsequently
commuted and the prisoners were released in September 1995.
Last year a Special Military
Tribunal convicted over 40 government critics and opponents
to long prison terms after what
were grossly unfair and politically motivated trials. In 1994
and 1995 at least 200 people have
been executed following their conviction for armed robbery by
Robbery and Firearms
Tribunals which allowed no right of appeal.

ENDS\









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