Published on : 20 June 2012 – 2:03pm | By Hélène Michaud
Was it “sabotage” or “inventorise”? The possible mistranslation of a single word may have led to accusations of terrorism against Sunny Ofehe, a Nigerian activist living in the Netherlands.
In early 2011, Ofehe was charged in the Netherlands with planning to blow up oil pipelines and thus of conspiring to commit terrorist acts in Nigeria’s oil-producing region, the Niger Delta.
Now Ofehe has pressed charges against the Dutch Public Prosecutor for falsifying evidence against him. He alleges that an inaccurate summary of a tapped telephone call in Pidgin English led to wrongful accusations of terrorism against him.