By Chibuike Nwabuko
ABUJA (Sundiata Post) – A group of American lawyers under the law firm of Fein & DelValle PLLC said it has concluded plans to prosecute President Muhamadu Buhari and Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The law firm said it has collected evidence which include extrajudicial killings, torture, and other unspeakable horrors perpetrated against the Biafrans by the security forces operating under the direction or control of the duo.
Fein & DelValle PLLC hinted this on Sunday in a statement sent to Sundiata Post.
The law firm said that the indictment being drafted which is modeled after the genocide or crimes against humanity indictments returned against Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic, Sudan’s Omar Bashir, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, Chad’s Hissen Habre, and Cambodia’s Comrade Duch, would be presented to the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, Fatou Bensouda.
Sundiata Post recalls that the European Union while condemning the brutal attack on IPOB (Indigenous People of Biafra) members and leadership under the military exercise code-named Operation Python Dance II, following video footages of the brutal and inhuman activities of the Nigerian Army in the South-East region of Nigeria, said it would not sit and watch things go undemocratic in Africa’s largest economy.
The videos showed various scenes of the invasion of communities; torture and killings of IPOB members, which went viral after the Nigeria Army launched the operation to clamp down on the group agitating for self-determination.
According to the statement, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia granted the motion of Fein & DelValle since majority of Biafrans cannot speak for themselves without risking lethal retaliation by President Buhari or Lt.-General Buratai.
The statement reads:
“On behalf of Biafrans who covet justice—the dead, the living, and those yet to be born—the law firm of Fein & DelValle PLLC is drafting a criminal indictment against Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari and Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Yusuf Buratai, for genocide and crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
“Buhari and Buratai are criminally culpable because of their command responsibility over security forces operating under their direction or control and who are terrorizing tens of millions of Biafrans specifically because of their Christianity and ethnicity. The crimes include extrajudicial killings, torture, and sister unspeakable horrors. They are the grisly signature of Buhari’s and Buratai’s ongoing military campaign in the South East region with the euphemistic moniker “Operation Python Dance II.
“The indictment being drafted by Fein & DelValle will be presented to Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, Fatou Bensouda. It will be modeled after the genocide or crimes against humanity indictments returned against Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic, Sudan’s Omar Bashir, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, Chad’s Hissen Habre, and Cambodia’s Comrade Duch.
“The overwhelming majority of Biafrans cannot speak for themselves without risking lethal retaliation by President Buhari or Lt. General Buratai. That fear explains the reason the United States District Court for the District of Columbia granted the motion of Fein & DelValle to reference their ten (10) Biafran plaintiffs anonymously in their Torture Victims Protection Act suit against sixteen (16) individual Nigerian defendants inDoe, et al. v. Buratai, et al., Civil Action No. 1:17-cv-0133.
The law firm of Fein & Delvalle said it is gathering photographic, video, and testimonial evidence of the ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity perpetrated by Buhari and Buratai against Igbos not only in the South East region, but also in northern Nigeria and elsewhere. It added that there is no safe haven in Nigeria for them.
“Nigeria’s current borders were drawn by a racist British colonial master more than a century ago with no reference to the inhabitants. The boundaries are morally, legally, and politically indefensible. The Government of Nigeria does not reflect popular will on that score. It rules under a 1999 Constitution that was decreed by a military dictator for the purpose, among other things, of holding Igbos in bondage to Hausa-Fulani terrorists.
“Britain defaulted on its decolonisation obligation to permit self-determination referenda by each of the separate and distinct peoples of Nigeria. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1514, December 14, 1960, provides: ‘All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development’,” the statement concluded.