Shell on Trial (1995 murder of activist who opposed environmental degradation)

Shell on Trial

Oil giant in the dock over 1995 murder of activist who opposed environmental degradation of Niger Delta
by Daniel Howden

Royal Dutch Shell will revisit one of the darkest periods of its history tomorrow as a potentially groundbreaking court case opens in New York.

The oil giant stands accused of complicity in the 1995 execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa, a Nigerian environmental activist. The world's boardrooms are watching the case, which is seen as a test of whether transnational companies owned or operating in the US can be held responsible for human rights abuses committed abroad.

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Mr Saro-Wiwa was hanged in November 1995 after being convicted by a military tribunal in which he was denied proper legal representation or appeal. Shell subsequently faced a storm of protest and Nigeria was suspended from the Commonwealth. The then British prime minister John Major called the execution "judicial murder".

The suit also alleges that the company consistently conspired with military authorities to violently put down peaceful protests by the Ogoni people, hundreds of thousands of whom Mr Saro-Wiwa had helped to mobilise.

"I have always maintained that Shell was complicit in the conspiracy to silence my father along with thousands of other Ogonis," said his eldest son, Ken Wiwa Jnr.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/05/26-4