Shell on trail over Nigerian activist

Oil giant Shell went on trial in New York, yesterday accused of colluding in the execution of a Nigerian environmental activist. The company is accused of asking Nigeria's military dictatorship to silence Ken Saro-Wiwa who campaigned against environmental damage caused by oil extraction.

Saro-Wiwa and eight other oil industry opponents were executed on November 10, 1995, after a military tribunal convicted them on what were widely viewed as trumped-up charges of murdering four political rivals. The case, which according to the Daily Mail newspaper is being seen as a test of whether global companies owned or operating in the US can be held responsible for human rights abuses committed abroad. Shell strongly denies the charges brought by relatives of Mr Saro-Wiwa and other victims of Nigeria's military dictatorship. But if found liable, the oil giant could face damages amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. The trial stems from two lawsuits accusing Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and Brian Anderson, the former managing director of its Nigerian subsidiary, Shell Transport and Trading, of being complicit in decisions by Nigeria's then-military government to hang oil industry opponents.

Saro-Wiwa's son Ken Saro-Wiwa Junior said Shell was facing justice for its part in the alleged execution. Saro-Wiwa was a Nigerian activist and playwright who led criticism of oil exploitation in his homeland when he was executed. At the time, Prime Minister John Major called the killing 'judicial murder'. Saro-Wiwa's son Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr, told the newspaper earlier this month, reported, that it was time Shell finally had its day in court. 'In a sense we already have a victory, because one of the things my father said was that Shell would one day have its day in court,' he said. 'We felt they had ducked their responsibility for what happened in Nigeria, so we wanted to fulfil that prediction. 'When your father... is executed for a crime he did not commit, very publicly like that, it's painful. 'And to live for 12 years without justice, without getting a sense of relief, seeing the perpetrators of the crimes continuing to benefit from their crimes, these are difficult things for any human beings to deal with.'

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children