Four months after their scuffle with military personnel in Zaria, hundreds of members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, otherwise known as Shiites, were in court yesterday to answer charges preferred against them by the Kaduna State Government.
“Two hundred and sixty five of them are facing death penalty carrying charges,” a TVC report said. “Forty seven of them were in court in Kaduna, out of a roughly two hundred who have been in prison custody.”
The report one of the lawyers to the accused as disclosing that about 40 of them have been granted bail, but those battling bullet wounds would be isolated before the trial continues.
News Express reports that soldiers clamped down on the Shiites and destroyed their headquarters after Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai, was prevented from passing through the area on his way to an official assignment in Zaria.
Hundreds of Shiites were killed in the crackdown and the Kaduna State Government has admitted to given 347 of them mass burial. Several other hundreds remain in detention, including the sect leader, Sheikh Ibraheem El-Zakzaky, who is reportedly seriously injured.