A panel of five justices of South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal led by Justice Mahomed Navsa have reserved Judgement in the case brought by alleged leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), Henry Okah.
Okah, who is serving a 24-year jail term for terror related activities, had approached the Appeal Court to set his conviction and sentence aside, based on the claim that the Act, under which he was convicted, does not bestow a South African court with the jurisdiction to try him.
His counsel asserts that the definition of terrorism in the Act is too broad and as a result is in breach of the South African constitution, particularly with regards to the Bill of Rights.
Okah was appealing his jail term in the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein.
He was convicted by the South Gautheng High Court in 2013 this stemming from his plotting a terror attack in Nigeria in
2010.
12 people were killed and 35 injured in car bomb in Abuja on October 1, 2010.
Source : Channels Television News