Court Adjourns Sheikh Ibrahim El-Zakzaky’s Trial To March 25

Court Adjourns Sheikh Ibrahim El-Zakzaky’s Trial To March 25

A Kaduna State High court has adjourned the trial of the embattled
leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, Sheikh Ibrahim El-Zakzaky and
his wife, Zeenat.  

The IMN leader is currently facing trial over allegations of culpable
homicide, unlawful assembly, and disruption of public peace, among
other charges. He had earlier been denied bail by the presiding Judge,
Justice Gideon Kurada during the last sitting on November 7, 2018.  

In the application for bail he filed on June 6, 2018, El Zakzaky’s
lawyer, Maxwell Kyon, told the court that his client’s health had badly
deteriorated as a result of injuries he sustained in 2015 and his long
stay in the custody of the DSS, hence the need for him and his wife to
have access to urgent medical attention.

 The prosecuting counsel, however, opposed the bail application,
contending that the reasons advanced by El Zakzkay’s lawyer were not
enough to grant him bail. In his ruling at the time, Justice Kurada said
El Zakzkay’s lawyer had failed to support his request for bail with
enough medical evidence that would allow the court to exercise its
discretion in his favour.  

Consequently, he ordered that both of them be remanded in the custody
of the Department of State Security Services (DSS) throughout the
period of their trial. The case was then adjourned to January 22, 2019,
for accelerated trial. At the resumed hearing, the prosecuting counsel,
Bayero Debris, said the presiding judge again, adjourned the trial to
March 25, 2019, to enable El-Zakzaky and his wife get proper medical
attention.