Controversial pro-Biafra agitator, Simon Ekpa, has appointed a new legal representative for his trial in Finland, which is scheduled for June 2025.
BBC Pidgin disclosed that Ekpa changed his lawyer because the previous one had “retired from service”.
Ekpa’s new lawyer, Kaarle Gummerus, said he had received his client’s pre-trial file and is “currently checking through it.”
Gummerus also affirmed that Ekpa will appear in court in June 2025 to face trial.
LEADERSHIP recalls that in November 2024, Ekpa, a self-proclaimed leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), was arrested by law enforcement in Finland for alleged terrorism financing and instigation in Nigeria.
RELATED: Simon Ekpa, 13 Others Indicted For Terrorism Financing
He was subsequently sent to prison by the district court of Päijät-Häme for “spreading terrorist propaganda on social media”, a crime he was said to have committed in 2021 in Lahti municipality.
He was accused of instigating violence and inciting terror in the South-East of Nigeria through his social media pages.
Nigerian authorities demanded the extradition of Ekpa, a dual citizen of Finland and Nigeria, for prosecution. However, the effort has not yielded the result.
Last year, the senior detective superintendent at the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in Finland, Mikko Laaksonen, disclosed that a Finnish district court fixed May 2025 for the prosecution to file charges against Ekpa.
Laaksonen said Ekpa would remain in custody until his trial since the alleged offence was not bailable.
In March this year, the Nigeria Sanctions Committee (NSC) designated Ekpa and 16 entities as alleged terrorism financiers in the country and froze the bank accounts connected to them.
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