Atlanta, July 17: Nigerian playwright and Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka believes that his countryman Moshood Abiola was killed and did not die of a heart attack, as preliminary autopsy results have shown.``I'm convinced that some kind of slow poison was administered to Abiola,'' Soyinka said in an interview.
Abiola, the apparent winner of annulled presidential elections in 1993, died on July seven while meeting a group of visiting US officials, shortly before he was expected to be released from prison. His death set off days of rioting and chaos in the West African country.
Preliminary autopsy results found that Abiola died naturally of an apparent heart attack but pro-democracy groups still hold the government responsible for the death, saying he received poor treatment while in prison.
Speaking yesterday on the campus of Emory university in Atlanta, where he is a professor after being exiled from Nigeria, Soyinka gave several reasons for his belief that Abiola was killed. He said the timing ofhis death was suspicious and previous political prisoners were given injections against their will.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
