Released and released after more than five years in prison, Sheik Ibrahim Zakzaky and his wife were released on Wednesday, July 28, 2021 by the court in Kaduna, in the north of the country. The founder of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (MIN), a Shiite political and religious movement, was charged with murder after violence that erupted alongside a religious procession in the city of Zaria in 2015.
Pictures Ibrahim Zakzaky took to social media yesterday Wednesday. He is seen free walking into a car. According to a source close to MIN, he and his wife moved in with their son, the only one of their six children still alive.
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In a statement, the movement praised “a victory of perseverance in the face of extreme persecution.” Ibrahim Zakzaky was arrested in December 2015, on charges of murdering a soldier. At that time, a Shiite religious procession, in which he participated, had turned into a bloodbath. The security forces had killed almost 350 people. In Zaria, the Nigerian army then accused members of MIN of wanting to back it up.
In the last five years the detention of Ibrahim Zalkzaky had been condemned several times, starting with Nigerian justice itself. As early as 2016, the federal court in Abuja, the capital, ruled that sheik’s detention was illegal and demanded his release. A decision that is simply ignored by Kaduna’s justice.
Human Rights Organization, Amnesty International, had also repeatedly condemned this deprivation of liberty and wondered whether it was not used to cover up the crimes committed by the security forces in Zaria. Despite an official report from Kaduna State confirming that the military has reacted disproportionately, no soldiers have ever been arrested. Kaduna prosecutor Dari Bayero said on Wednesday that the prosecutor intended to appeal.
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