By Abdulmumin Giwa
Responding to charges enforcing the fundamental human rights of the leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, IMN Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky, counsel to the Department of State Security, DSS Barrister Tijjani Ghazali said the Sheikh is being detained with own consent.
He explained that the IMN leader is being kept under “protective custody” for his own safety and that the DSS had spent N5.1 million treating him of injuries he sustained when he was attacked last December by the Nigerian Army.
Following this development, Barrister Ghazali applied for an extension of time to review the response of the applicants to the motion he filed before the court on the 9th of June 2016.
On hearing that, counsel to Sheikh Zakzaky, Festus Okoye Esq. plead to reply in writing because all the claims are new and need time to respond to. Barrister Festus Okoye said he had no objection with the extension of time due to the issues raised denying that his client was being detained with his own consent.
He said that their team would require time to respond to those issues raised by the respondents on their client who has been under the DSS detention without charges for the past six months.
The High Court Judge listening to the case, Justice Gabriel Kolawale ruled that the applicants should file and serve the respondents on the motion raised within five days from today.
The same processes were adopted for the case on the enforcement of the right of Malama Zeenat Ibrahim the wife of the revered leader of the IMN.
The judge fixed 13th of July 2016 for hearing in both the two cases seeking the payment of N2 billion each as general damages.
It would be recalled that Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky’s residence was attacked by the Nigerian Army in December last year during which three of his sons were brutally killed by the soldiers at close range and his wife also severally shot. The Sheikh was shot severally by the Army.
During the attack, a compound in the Sheikh’s residence was set blasé by the soldiers burning some of his followers alive including his younger sister.
The IMN leader and his wife Malama Zeenat were abducted by the soldiers with fatal injuries and later kept incommunicado in the DSS detention facility for six months without any charges.
The attack on the Sheikh’ residence followed an alleged blockage of the road along which the Chief of Army Staff was passing near the Hussainiyya of the Movement that was about five kilometers away a day before his attack.
The Kaduna state government had confessed burying 347 members of the Movement in a mass grave after the deadly attack on the Movement that led to the killing of over 1000 followers of the Sheikh in Zaria.