Mr. Buruji Kashamu
The
Federal Government has not appealed against the ruling of Justice
Gabriel Kolawole of the Federal High Court in Abuja, which dismissed a
suit seeking the extradition of the Ogun-East Senator, Buruji Kashamu,
to the United States of America to face illicit drug charge, findings by
our correspondent have shown.
Since it was an interlocutory ruling and
not a judgment on the main suit, the government ought to have appealed
against the ruling which was delivered on July 1, within 14 days.
Our
correspondent learnt that the Federal Government, through the Ministry
of Justice, has only appealed against two separate judgments of the
Lagos Division of the Federal High Court which had stopped the Office of
the Attorney-General of the Federation from going ahead with the
extradition proceedings already instituted against the senator before
Justice Kolawole.
Justice Kolawole had, in his ruling on
July 1, dismissed the extradition suit on the grounds that his court
lacked jurisdiction to entertain it since the judgment of the Lagos
division of the court nullifying the proceedings had not been set aside
by any appellate court.
Justice Okon Abang of the Lagos division
had, on June 8, 2015, nullified the extradition proceedings instituted
before Justice Kolawole in the Abuja division of the court on the
grounds that the suit was commenced in contravention of some subsisting
court orders which had exonerated Kashamu of culpability in the alleged
crime in the US.
Justice Abang’s order nullifying the proceedings was affirmed by Justice Ibrahim Buba in a ruling on June 23, 2015.
Our correspondent’s findings showed that
the Federal Ministry of Justice had appealed against the two judgments
by Justices Abang and Buba.
No official of the ministry was willing
to offer information on whether or not the office of the
Attorney-General of the Federation had appealed against Justice
Kolawole’s ruling, which quashed the extradition suit.
However, a senior lawyer with the case
but who asked not to be named because he was not authorised to speak for
the ministry, confirmed the outcome of our correspondent’s search at
the registry of the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal that no appeal
had been filed against Justice Kolawole’s ruling.
One of the lawyers in Kashamu’s legal
team, Mr. Babs Akinwumi, also on Thursday confirmed that there was no
pending appeal against the ruling.
“They (the Federal Ministry of Justice)
have not appealed against the ruling. If they have appealed against it,
they would have served us with their notice of appeal. Up till now, we
have not received copies of their processes in the office, where they
usually serve us,” he said.
According to Akinwumi, going by the
provisions of the law, the ministry ought to have filed an appealed
against the court’s decision within 14 days since the ruling was
interlocutory and not a ruling on the main suit.
He said if it was a judgment on the main
suit, then the appellant would have up to 30 days to file an appeal
against the decision.
When contacted, the spokesperson for the
Federal Ministry of Justice, Mr. Charles Nwodo, said he did not have
information on the case.
But justifying the ministry’s refusal to
appeal against Justice Kolawole’s ruling, our source said the ministry
hoped that it would win its appeals against the judgments of Justices
Abang and Buba, and that would clear the way for a fresh extradition
application to be filed.
“Their (the ministry’s) strategy is to
get the judgments from Lagos set aside and if they (the ministry) are
able to achieve that, they will then file a fresh extradition
application,” the source said.
The immediate past Attorney-General and
Minister of Justice, Mr. Mohammed Adoke, had filed the application on
May 28, 2015, upon a United State Government’s request asking the
Nigerian government to submit Kashamu for extradition.
The then AGF stated in the application,
FHC/ABJ/CS/479/2015, that Kashamu, described by the US government as
being also known as Alhaji and Kashmal, was a subject of a one-count
second superseding indictment in criminal case No. 94 CR 172 filed
before the Illinois court on May 21, 1998.
An affidavit deposed to by the Assistant
US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Diane MacArthur,
attached to the extradition request from the US government, was said to
be dated April 27, 2015.
By the US government’s charge against
him, Kashamu allegedly conspired with others to intentionally import
“and did import into the United States” quantities of mixtures
containing heroin between 1992 and 1995.
The offence for which Kashamu is
allegedly wanted in the US is said to contravene Section 952(a) of Title
21, United States Code, and punishable under Section 960 of the same
law.
The penalty for the offence on conviction
under the law, according to the charge, is an imprisonment of not more
than 10 years or a fine of up to $10m in the case of an individual or
both.
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