Bruce Fein, a lawyer based in the United States of America, has accused the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing, of conspiring with the Nigerian government to keep Nnamdi Kanu detained indefinitely.
Kanu has been detained in the Department of State Services (DSS) headquarters in Abuja since June 2021, when he was extraordinary renditioned to Nigeria from Kenya.
Fein accused Laing of complicity and indifference in Kanu’s ordeals, claiming that the envoy was directly hindering efforts to release the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader.
Kanu’s lawyer expressed shock that Britain and her High Commissioner would be unfazed by her citizen’s ongoing illegal incarceration in defiance of court rulings and the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in a letter to the British envoy dated February 10, 2023, and made available to QUEST TIMES.
The US lawyer expressed surprise that, despite the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention’s recommendation that Nigeria fully release Kanu, Laing remained silent.
Fein wanted to know why she remained silent about Kanu’s ordeals as a British citizen.
“What is your ulterior motive? Oil and gas for the United Kingdom? Lucrative UK business arrangements? he queried.
The letter read in part: “Evidence has surfaced that you personally are sabotaging Mr Kanu’s unconditional release as mandated under jus cogens norms of international law binding on all nations irrespective oo consent. You have taken cynicism and hypocrisy to a new level.
“Your government has taken extreme umbrage at Russian President, Vladimir Putin’s violation of international law in attacking Ukraine and committing war crimes, but you have made the UK complicit in flouting international law like Mr. Putin by affirmatively encouraging the government of Nigeria to continue its illegal detention of Nnamdi Kanu.
“You and your country plunged to new depths. You go to war over the Falkland Islands thousands of miles from English shores with a tiny population of 3,500 to keep them free from Argentinian misgovernment. But Nnamdi Kanu, a British citizen, is abandoned to the cruel, lawless dungeon of Nigeria’s DSS.”