A court in Nigeria has found separatist leader Nnamdi Kanu guilty of terrorism following a decade-long legal case full of drama.
The court said it was satisfied that Kanu had made a series of broadcasts to incite violence and killings, as part of his campaign for a separate state in south-east Nigeria, known as Biafra.
Kanu has been convicted on all seven charges he faced, as well as terrorism. They included treason and involvement with an outlawed movement.
The court has adjourned, with the judge expected to hand down a sentencing later on Thursday. The prosecution has called for the death penalty, although this is rarely carried out in Nigeria.
Kanu always denied the charges and challenged the court's jurisdiction over him. At the start of the trial, he sacked his lawyers but refused to defend himself.
Security around the court in the capital, Abuja, was tightened ahead of the verdict in case of protests by Kanu's supporters.
Once a relatively obscure figure, he came to national prominence in 2009 when he started Radio Biafra, a station that called for an independent state for the Igbo people, broadcast to Nigeria from London.
Though he grew up in south-eastern Nigeria, where he attended the University of Nsukka, Kanu moved to the UK before graduating, and acquired British nationality.
In 2014, he set up the Indigenous People Of Biafra (Ipob), a movement demanding independence.
Ipob was banned as a terrorist organisation in 2017. Its armed wing - the Eastern Security Network - has been accused of killings and other acts of violence in recent years.
Kanu is a popular figure in his movement's heartland in south-eastern Nigeria, but reaction to the verdict there has so far been muted. Judge James Omotosho stated that Kanu had carried out preparatory acts of terrorism and noted his failure to defend himself during the trial.
Kanu was first arrested in October 2015 but jumped bail in 2017 after a military raid on his home. The court later revoked his bail in March 2019. Two years later, the government announced that he had been re-arrested. His lawyers claim he was detained in Kenya and forcibly returned to Nigeria. A 2022 appeal court had ordered the charges against him dropped, citing illegal arrest, but this was overturned by the Supreme Court afterward.
Calls for Biafran independence date back many years, with notable events such as the 1967 declaration of the Biafran state, which led to a brutal civil war with up to a million deaths, frosty relations continue in Nigeria between the Igbo people and the state.
