From the Telegraph:
Shell execs accused of ‘collaboration’ over hanging of Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa
“After a secret trial, widely viewed as rigged, Mr Saro-Wiwa was convicted of murder and executed in November 1995 along with eight other members of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP). To international outrage, Mr Saro-Wiwa’s body was burned with acid and thrown in an unmarked grave.
Almost 14 years later, Mr Anderson, a Nigerian-born British citizen, is about to face a civil jury trial along with 15 other Shell executives concerning their alleged role in encouraging a brutal government crackdown on the Ogani people and in failing to use their influence to prevent the execution of the activists known as the Ogoni Nine.
(snip)
Should the jury conclude that Mr Anderson and other executives were culpable in Nigeria’s suppression of the protest movement, which led to numerous murders and the executions of the Ogoni Nine, they could be liable for huge damages to the families of those executed. The lawsuit asserts that as Mr Saro-Wiwa’s campaign grew, Shell become worried that it would hit oil production across the Niger Delta, disrupt its operations and tarnish its image abroad. The multinational “sought to eliminate that threat, through a systematic campaign of human rights violations,” the lawsuit alleges.
(snip)
Court documents allege that there was “a pattern of collaboration” between Shell and the military “to violently and ruthlessly suppress any opposition to its exploitation of oil and natural gas resources in the Niger Delta.”
A month after Mr Saro-Wiwa’s execution, Shell executives initialed an agreement with the Nigerian government to pump $4 billion into a natural gas project.”
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I protested against Shell over Saro-Wiwa’s death back in college. A group of us had signs and picketed a Shell gas station. That feels like ages ago. I wonder how this trial will turn out.
Posted by Vixen as News at 11:24 PM CDT