Shell faces a new lawsuit before Dutch courts for alleged complicity in unlawful arrest, detention and executions in Nigeria

Together with three other wives of the Ogoni 9, executed in 1995 by the Nigerian military government following an unfair trial, Esther Kiobel has launched a new lawsuit against Shell in the Netherlands, the company’s home country, for its alleged complicity in these crimes.

 The context in which these events take place is the violent campaign led by Nigera’s military to stop the protests of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), led by activist Ken Saro Wiwa, which demonstrated against the degradation of the environment that was being caused by Shell’s operations in this territory.

Meetings between Shell representatives and members of the Nigerian government to discuss the problem of the Ogonis’ protests, even during the unlawful detention of the cited victims, may suggest the company’s complicity in the unlawful arrest, detention and executions in Nigeria of the so-called Ogoni 9, convicted in an unfair trial for murdering or inciting the murder of four Ogoni leaders that were opponents of MOSOP in 1994.

This new case follows the well-known Kiobel case, put forward by the plaintiffs against Shell, in application of the Alien Tort Act and which the US Supreme Court finally refused to hear in 2013 on the basis of lack of jurisdiction.

More in-depth information on the case can be accessed here and here.

See Amnesty International’s 18 minutes documentary on the case here.