Don’t Bow To Pressure To Extradite Me, Kashamu Urges FG
Senator representing Ogun East Senatorial District, Buruji Kashamu, has urged the federal government not to bow to the sinister bid by his political enemies to extradite him at all cost to the United States since he had been cleared of allegations of drug trafficking by two United Kingdom courts and a Federal High Court in Nigeria.
The Senator, who said this at a news conference in Lagos at the weekend, insisted that it would be illegal to initiate another extradition proceeding against him over same untrue allegation.
Senator Kashamu also wants the government to do more to defend the country’s territorial integrity, saying a situation where British investigators for instance, come to Nigeria to conduct investigations, to the extent of taking witnesses away to testify abroad, must no longer be tolerated. Can we do that there? He said.
He stressed that the recent ruling by a US appeal court was twisted by a section of the media, adding that his travails were politically motivated.
Kashamu said the ruling was to the effect that the US police was free to initiate extradition proceedings against anyone in collaboration with a local police.
“But that does not mean the court is telling them they have the right to enter into our territory to arrest me. That does not mean our police will say come and kidnap him.
“But what we are saying is that they cannot bring another extradition against me, because the ones they brought to London were dismissed; the one in Nigeria was dismissed, he said.
The lawmaker maintained that the allegations of illicit drug dealing in the US were baseless because he had never been to America, adding that only fugitive could be extradited, which he was not.
The senator urged the Federal Government, which he said believes in the rule of law, to resist a sinister bid by his political enemies to extradite him at all cost, which would amount to an abduction.
He also wants the government to do more to defend the country’s territorial integrity, saying a situation where British investigators for instance, come to Nigeria to conduct investigations, to the extent of taking witnesses away to testify abroad, must no longer be tolerated. Can we do that there? he said.
Kashamu described reports as the latest in a series of efforts orchestrated by his political opponents to call a dog a bad name so as to hang it.
The senator recalled that while on a business trip to the United Kingdom in 1998, he was arrested at City Airport in London and detained pursuant to an arrest warrant issued on the basis of an indictment in the US in which the name Alaji had been introduced as a party to an alleged offence of importation of narcotics.
“I have never visited or resided in the U.S and certainly have never been involved in any business not to talk of a criminal activity whatsoever in the US, he said.
He said his lawyers came across some exculpatory evidence, which the US government had concealed from the courts in the extradition proceedings.
The evidence, he said, was the outcome of a photo identification parade for the purpose of identifying the Alaji held in the US Attorney’s office.
Kashamu said: “They had taken a mug shot of me and placed it with seven other photographs of black males who had facial hair that was similar to mine and were about my age too.
“After viewing the photo line up, Fillmore, one of the accused, said that the third photograph in the lineup looked like a bad photograph of the man they were looking for.
“He also declared that the second, fourth, sixth, seventh and eighth photographs did not at all look like the said Alaji; my mug shot was the seventh in the lineup; that was one of the photographs that Fillmore said did not at all look like the wanted kingpin.
“So, my lawyers immediately commenced a Habeas Corpus( a recourse in law whereby a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment before a court) application in the High Court of Justice, Queens Bench division, for my release and the vacation of the committal order made by the Court.
“The English High Court in its judgment delivered on the 6th of October 2000, agreed that the order for my committal was null and void having been the product of unfair proceedings in which the U.S. Government had suppressed exculpatory evidence.
Kashamu said the US authorities did not appeal the decision but re-arrested him and commenced a second extradition proceedings at the Bow Street Magistrate Court in England before District Judge Tim Workman.
