JUST IN: Shiites’ leader, El-Zakzaky, wife get new passports years after court order

JUST IN: Shiites’ leader, El-Zakzaky, wife get new passports years after court order

Sheikh Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, the thorny head of the Shiite Islamic Movement in Nigeria, and his wife Zeenat have been given new international passports.

El-Zakzaky acknowledged the occurrence in a video clip that was made public on Monday and showed him being visited by several people while Eid-ul-Maulud was being celebrated in Abuja.

Now that this has happened, the Shiite leader and his wife are free to seek medical care abroad if they so choose.

Speaking in the Hausa language, Sheik El-Zakzaky said: “I am happy to tell you that they have given us our new passports. The officials came to our house to take our data, and they have brought the passports to us.”

Shuaibu Waheed, one of El-Zakzaky’s solicitors, reportedly told Sahara Reporters that the pair had now obtained their passports.

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It will be recalled that El-Zakzaky filed a lawsuit at the Federal High Court in Abuja to contest the Department of State Services’ (DSS) and former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami’s confiscation of their international passports.

They claimed that the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), which formally disputed that it was in their possession, had their passports when they were last seen carrying them in separate lawsuits filed by the Femi Falana Chambers on October 14.

Findings, however, revealed that while attempting to renew their passports through the Immigration Service, the couples discovered their passports had been flagged by the Department of the States Services (DSS).

They had added that all requests to remove the restriction were ignored by the secret agency. The duo had since asked the court to compel the DSS and the AGF to release their passports and lift the red flag restrictions.

They were also asking the court to declare that the seizure of their passports since May 2019, was illegal and unconstitutional because it violates their fundamental rights to freedom of movement

They asked the court to mandate the defendants to pay the sum of N2 billion each, as general and exemplary damages, for the violation of their rights to freedom of movement.

JUST IN: Shiites’ leader, El-Zakzaky, wife get new passports years after court order