The Department of State Services has arrested three Israelis shooting a documentary in the South East.
According to Israeli foreign ministry, they were arrested last week, after presenting Shiviti to Eze Nri.
Times of Israel reports that the Nigerian authorities arrested and interrogated the trio on suspicion that they had come into contact with the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB.
Family members of one of the men stressed to the Times of Israel that the allegations were entirely unfounded, and that IPOB’s media accounts took advantage of the Israelis’ trip to claim that the three were supporting them.
The Israeli Embassy in Abuja is following the case closely and is in contact with Nigerian authorities, according to the Foreign Ministry.
One of the Israelis arrested is Rudy Rochman, a Zionist activist with almost 95,000 followers on Instagram. Making the flight with him were filmmaker Noam Leibman and French-Israeli journalist E. David Benaym.
They took off from Ben Gurion Airport on July 5 and landed in Nigeria the next day.
The crew was detained at a synagogue during Friday night services in village Ogidi, Anambra State and taken to Abuja.
The paper said that the filmmakers were aware of the political sensitivity surrounding the filming of the Igbo community.
Last Thursday, the We Were Never Lost Facebook page stressed: “We do not take any position on political movements as we are not here as politicians nor as a part of any governmental delegations.”
The group met last week with Igbo leader Eze Chukwuemeka Eri and presented him with a framed Shiviti made in Jerusalem.
Rochman also presented another Igbo community with a Torah scroll whose cover was designed by British-Israeli street artist Solomon Souza.
