A case of four Nigerian widows against oil giant Shell over their husbands’ execution by the military regime that ruled the nation in the 1990s has been rejected by a Dutch court.
 
The court on Wednesday said there was not enough evidence to support the widows’ claim that Shell had been involved in bribing witnesses related to the case.

In 2019, the court had handed the widows a rare win in their long-running battle by allowing the case to continue. But it had also said the claimants needed to prove Shell’s liability.
 
Shell has always denied any wrongdoing.
 
Esther Kiobel, whose husband Barinem Kiobel was among those executed, said she aimed to file an appeal in The Hague.
 
“We can’t do it in Nigeria because they are the collaborators,” she said. “I want their names exonerated. That’s what I want and that’s what I’m fighting for.”
 
According to Reuters, the lawyer for the widows, Channa Samkalden, said the others were also considering filing an appeal.
 
The widows alleged that Shell had been involved in corrupting witnesses in the trial of the so-called Ogoni 9, who in November 1995, were convicted by a military tribunal for involvement in the murder of four Ogoni leaders.
 
They accused Shell of involvement in the arrest, detention, prosecution and eventual execution of their husbands, who opposed the group’s exploitation of oil resources in Ogoni, Rivers State.
 
But the Dutch court ruled that their position was based on interpretation and supposition and that they had no evidence to support their accusations.
 
Witnesses had testified to the court that they had signed preprepared statements and had been coached to incriminate the defendants, in return for the promise of payments and jobs. They said they had been told that the money they received came from Shell.
 
But “the statements are largely based on assumptions and interpretations of the witnesses and are not specific enough to be able to conclude that the money they have stated actually came from (Shell),” said a court statement.
 
Whatever abuses had taken place during the trial, there was no evidence that Shell had any knowledge of or role in what had happened, the court concluded.
 
Esther Kiobel, the widow of the Barinem Kiobel, brought the action with the support of Amnesty International. Her husband was executed on November 10, 1995, along with eight other activists.
 
Among them was the Nigerian writer and campaigner Ken Saro-Wiwa, who led the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP).
 
All the defendants insisted they were innocent of the charges against them and rights organisations including Amnesty have argued that their trial was a sham.
 
The court heard testimony from five witnesses, including several who said they had been paid by Shell representatives for rehearsed false testimonies in the trial that led to the men’s execution.
 
But the court issued its ruling on Wednesday after hearing witness testimony that it said was not sufficient or verifiable enough to establish the responsibility or involvement of Shell or its Nigerian subsidiary SPDC.
 
“The witnesses’ testimony relies for a large part on assumptions and interpretations and cannot be enough to conclude that the money that they received at the time actually was from SPDC, and that actual employees of SPDC were present,” Judge Larissa Alwin said.
 
The men executed were among a group that became known as the “Ogoni Nine”. The activists included writer Ken Saro-Wiwa.
 
The nine members of the group were arrested and hanged after a flawed trial that turned international opinion against Nigeria’s then-military rulers.
 
Relatives sought to hold Shell partially responsible in foreign courts, after exhausting legal possibilities in Nigeria.
 
Shell paid $15.5 million to one group of activists’ families, including the Saro-Wiwa estate, in the United States in a 2009 settlement in which Shell also denied any responsibility or wrongdoing.