The trial of Nigerian activist Sunny Ofehe over terrorism charges has been suspended. At the start of the preliminary hearing in Rotterdam on Monday, Ofehe’s lawyer requested that the court throw out the case. The judges refused to dismiss the case.

Ofehe's lawyer argued that the new terrorism charge that had been added to the four previous charges including human trafficking and forgery had taken his client by surprise. He said the new charge was based on insufficient evidence:  three tapped telephone conversations. Also, he argued that the prosecutor’s failure to release documents codenamed “Tokyo” to the defence made the trial unfair because in his view defence and prosecution did not have access to the same evidence.

Inadmissibilty claim rejected

The three judges deliberated on the matter and concluded that there were no grounds to throw out the case. They said they understood that the accused had been taken by surprise with the new terrorism charge.

However, they asked the prosecutor to respond in writing within six weeks to the defence lawyer’s requests for more evidence. They asked the prosecutor to explain why the files requested by the defence had not been released. The case is suspended until a new date is set for the trial to resume with a new preliminary hearing.

Mr. Ofehe is the first person to be charged in the Netherlands for conspiracy to commit a terrorist act abroad since the law on terrorist crimes was passed in 2004.