JUST IN :Finnish Police Release Ekpa Hours After Grilling

Finnish police on Thursday released a popular pro-Biafra separatist agitator, Simon Ekpa, hours after he was arrested and grilled.

The PUNCH earlier reported that Finnish authorities arrested Ekpa. The police escorted the separatist out of his apartment in Lahti.

Ekpa was later released on Thursday evening after the police allegedly arrested him for a suspected crime in Finland.

The Finnish Central Criminal Police confirmed Ekpa’s release on Thursday, according to HS reports.

The police claimed that its operation in Lahti and the subsequent arrest of the pro-Biafra agitator were in connection with the ongoing preliminary investigation.

“The person being questioned today is suspected of a crime. We will return to the title on Friday,” Tommi Reen from the Central Criminal Police told HS during a phone interview.

When contacted earlier, an official of the Finnish Embassy in Abuja who craves anonymity confirmed Ekpa’s arrest to Punch.

“It is our understanding that he is currently in police custody in Finland,” the official who is not authorised to speak to the press said.

“According to information available to us, the image is verified by Helsingin Sanomat, a Finnish newspaper; in it, Ekpa is seen being escorted out of his home in Lahti by plainclothes Finnish police”, the official volunteered.

Before his eventual arrest on Thursday, Nigerians all over the world have signed a petition appealing to the Finnish government, Nigerian Government and the European Union to arrest Ekpa, the brain behind the sit-at-home order in the South-East.

Ekpa, a self-acclaimed disciple of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, in had repeatedly ordered the people of the South-East to observe a sit-at-home and asked them to boycott the country’s general elections billed for Saturday.

His repeated sit-at-home order has been marked by bloodshed and destruction of lives and properties in the region by its enforcers.

The Punch