Nigerian court acquits militia leader of murder

LAGOS, Nigeria (Reuters) -- A Nigerian court has dropped charges of murder brought against a tribal militia leader after the bloody ethnic clashes that rocked the commercial capital Lagos last month, his lawyers said on Saturday.

It was the third time Frederick Fasehun, leader of the ethnic-Yoruba Oodua People's Congress (OPC), had gained a judicial reprieve, following his arrest and prosecution by the police in connection with the clashes in which more than 100 people were killed.

His lawyer, Femi Falana, told Reuters the Lagos court freed Fasehun on Friday after the police failed to substantiate the charges against him.

"The court discharged and acquitted him based on the case file brought by the police, which did not implicate him in the fighting, nor was there any evidence linking him," Falana said.

Fasehun was first granted bail by the court last Monday after police arraigned him and four other members of the OPC for murder.

But the militia leader was re-arrested by the police shortly afterwards and charged on Wednesday in the Ilorin district court in central Kwara State with criminal conspiracy and public disturbance.

The Ilorin court also granted him bail and fixed further hearing of the case for December 18.

COURT VICTORIES LIFT MILITIA

The court victories seem to have revived the voice of the OPC, which had been muffled following a police clampdown after President Olusegun Obasanjo outlawed it and other tribal militia groups in the wake of the Lagos mayhem.

Nigerian newspapers on Saturday quoted Fasehun as saying after Friday's court judgement that no one could ban his group.

"Nobody can kill OPC, OPC cannot die," he said.

His lawyer told Reuters the government had erred by banning the group, an action he said was reminiscent of Nigeria's brutal military era.

"This is a democratic setting, you can't just wake up one day and say you ban an association," Falana said.

But Lagos Police Commissioner Mike Okiro said the court victories notwithstanding, "The government has banned the group, and it remained banned."

The OPC emerged in the mid-1990s as a military opposition group, but later metamorphosed into a campaigner for autonomy for the southwestern Yorubas.

OPC has since been blamed by the police for the series of ethnic clashes particularly in southwest Nigeria, where hundreds of people have been killed.

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