Victory for wives of slain Ogoni leaders as Dutch court rules against Shell

A Dutch court said Wednesday it has jurisdiction to hear damages
suit brought against Royal Dutch Shell by four widows of activists
from Ogoniland in Rivers State who were executed by the then
Nigerian military government in 1995.

In a preliminary decision, judges at the Hague District Court
said they would allow the suit to go forward, a rare win in a
decades-long legal fight, though the claimants must still prove
Shell’s liability. Shell denies wrongdoing.

“This procedure will continue,” said presiding judge, Larissa
Alwin, reading the decision of a three-judge panel.

The men executed were among a group that became known as the
“Ogoni Nine” activists, who included writer and environmental
rights activist, Dr. Ken Saro-Wiwa.

The group had protested Shell’s exploitation of the Niger
Delta.

Its nine members were arrested and hanged after a flawed trial
that turned international opinion against Nigeria’s then-military
rulers.

A writ was placed before a civil court alleging that Shell was
complicit “in the unlawful arrest, detention and execution of nine
men who were hanged by Nigeria’s military government in the 1990s,”
Amnesty International had said in a statement.

Saro-Wiwa, who was the president and founder of the Movement for
the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), and eight others were
executed on November 10, 1995, after a military tribunal convicted
them of the murder of four traditional Ogoni chiefs.

The other eight were Saturday Dobee, Nordu Eawo, Daniel Gbooko,
Paul Levera, Felix Nuate, Baribor Bera, Barinem Kiobel, and John
Kpuine.
The four prominent chiefs whose killings led to the executions of
the Ogoni nine were Edward Kobani; Albert Badey, a former Secretary
to Rivers State Government; Theophilus Orage, and Sam Orage.

However, the execution of the nine activists provoked a global
outcry and led to the suspension of Nigeria from the
Commonwealth.
The country was re-admitted with the return of civil rule in
1999.

Alwin yesterday ordered Shell to turn over documents that could
help the claimants’ case, specifically any evidence that Shell paid
people to give false information about the activists to Nigerian
law-enforcement officials.

“I am glad that the court has found it has jurisdiction,” lead
plaintiff, Esther Kiobel, whose husband, Barinem Kiobel, was among
those executed, said outside the courtroom.

“My husband was killed like a criminal. I want him to be
exonerated.”
The relatives of the nine people have sought to hold Shell
partially responsible in foreign courts, after exhausting legal
possibilities in Nigeria.

Shell had paid $15.5 million to one group of activists’
families, including the Saro-Wiwa estate, in the United States in a
2009 settlement in which the company also denied any responsibility
or wrongdoing.

A second group led by Kiobel fought on in the United States
until the United States Supreme Court rejected jurisdiction in
2013.

Backed by Amnesty International, Kiobel and three other widows
have continued legal action in Britain and the Netherlands.

“We’re not doing this to settle, we’re seeking to hold Shell to
account,” Amnesty’s Mark Dummett said after the ruling, which he
described as a “mixed decision”.

He said he was disappointed judges had rejected broader
arguments that Shell was intertwined with the military government
in power in Nigeria in 1995.

But he was pleased the court had accepted jurisdiction and
disregarded Shell’s arguments that the case was too old to
hear.

However, the judges rejected assertions by the widows that Shell
should have done more to prevent their husbands’ executions.

“We continue to deny all the allegations in the strongest
possible terms,” Shell’s representative and External Relations
Manager of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), Mr. Igo
Weli, said yesterday outside the court.

“Shell was not responsible for what happened. Shell actually
made an appeal for clemency (in the Ogoni Nine case), but sadly
this was not heard,” Weli added.

Weli said the company would give the claimants access to
internal documents as ordered.

No date has yet been set for a next hearing to submit additional
evidence or a final decision.

The civil case has been brought by Esther Kiobel, the widow of
Barinem Kiobel, who was hanged in 1995 along with Saro-Wiwa and
seven others.

Shell was alleged to have helped in the arrest of the men, who
had sought to disrupt oil development in the region, citing health
and environmental impacts.

“Shell has been dodging accountability for its complicity in
these deaths for more than 20 years but now, thanks to Esther
Kiobel’s determination and bravery in taking on this corporate
Goliath, the past is finally catching up with it,” said Audrey
Gaughran, Senior Director of Research at Amnesty.

After her husband’s death, Kiobel fled to Benin in 1998 and then
moved to the United States where she still lives.

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