(Bloomberg) -- A Nigerian court granted bail to the leader of a Shiite group whose arrest four years ago sparked protests in which dozens of people have died.
The High Court in the northern city of Kaduna said Ibrahim el-Zakzaky, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, and his wife should be allowed to travel abroad to seek medical treatment. A spokesman for the Shiite group said they were waiting for the government to comply with the ruling.
“We are all aware of the blurred human-rights records of the Nigerian government, which hardly respects court orders,” Abdurrahman Yola, a spokesman for the Shiite group, said Monday in an emailed statement. “We will finalize urgent plans to transfer them to a more appropriate foreign health facility for further expert management as we await the response of the Nigerian government.”
El-Zakzaky and his wife, Zeenat, were detained in December 2015 after his followers clashed with soldiers in the motorcade of the country's army chief, Tukur Buratai. They have been held since then by President Muhammadu Buhari's government in defiance of previous court orders that they be granted bail. Dozens of his followers have been killed after being fired upon by security forces in protests to demand his release.
Nigeria, Africa's most populous country with almost 200 million people, is almost evenly split between a mainly Muslim north and a predominantly Christian south. The north is overwhelmingly Sunni, but there are an estimated 3 million Shiites.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ruth Olurounbi in Abuja at rolurounbi4@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Richardson at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net, Dulue Mbachu
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