A group of 31 lawyers from northern Nigeria on Wednesday volunteered to render free legal services to the former commander of the Inspector-General of Police Intelligence Response Team, Abba Kyari.

Kyari, a Deputy Commissioner of Police, is facing allegations of corruption levelled against him by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States for which he was suspended by the Police.

Spokesperson of the group, Sunusi Bappah Salisu, in a statement said the volunteer lawyers were drawn across all the 19 northern states and religions.

According to him, the pro bono was in response to calls for support for Kyari by the Coalition of Northern Groups.

The lawyers, he said, had volunteered to render free legal services for the preservation of Kyari’s fundamental rights that might be potentially jeopardized by his alleged indictment by a court in the United States of America.

Salisu said they would critically review the procedures adopted by the FBI to get the US Court to indict Kyari on allegations of involvement in charges filed  against a suspected fraudster, Ramon Abbas aka Hushpuppi.

He said, “We would raise questions involving the possibility of breaches to Kyari’s fundamental rights entrenched in Articles 6 and 7 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Right which essentially state that every individual shall have the right to liberty and to the security of his person and every individual shall have the right to have his cause heard.”

“Also, the  United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence,” he added.

Punch