Tag: Prince Buruji Kashamu

The recent judgment of a United States 7th Circuit Court of Appeal dismissing politician and businessman, Prince Buruji Kashamu’s, second bid to quash an indictment over drug trafficking charges, could not have come at a worse time for him. As chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Contact, Organisation and Mobilisation Committee in the South West, he is battling to assert himself as the ruling party’s pre-eminent figure in the zone – a task made more difficult by the ammunition which the judicial setback has provided for his political rivals. But in this report by Festus Eriye, Kashamu insists that he’s being wrongly accused and prosecuted by the US for an offence he didn’t commit, and one for which a British court had absolved him.

In denying his petition for a writ of mandamus, Justice Richard A. Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, made this tongue-in-cheek observation: “If he (Kashamu) wants to fight the charges, he has only to fly from Lagos to Chicago; there are loads of reasonably priced flights. See Priceline.com, ‘Cheap Flights from Lagos, Nigeria, to Chicago, IL.”

The PDP chieftain is not amused by the American jurist’s attempt at levity. He says: “Mr. Posner apparently intent on changing a fundamental principle of criminal and International Human rights law, places upon a suspect who has never been in the US before (merely upon being informed of allegations against him before a US court) the responsibility to buy a cheap ticket from www. priceline.com, come to the US to surrender himself into the arms of the US judiciary (to prove his innocence of the charges against him?) and, as recommended by him, in my case, to face a possible life sentence before a judge whose mind is already made up even without evidence.”

For Kashamu, the allurement to fly to the United States of his own accord and expense to taste American justice is clearly uninviting. He says it is akin to telling someone who had been miraculously healed of cancer to bring it upon himself again just to show off the miraculous powers of his God.

Events leading to Posner’s September 15 ruling were triggered by a motion filed earlier this year by Kashamu in which he sought a dismissal of the indictment against him on grounds that the court had no personal jurisdiction over him because he had never been in the US. He also argued that the speedy-trial clause of the Sixth Amendment bars his prosecution because the American government has not sought for his extradition for 11 years.

While acknowledging that Kashamu had never been to the US, as well as the fact that the British court had rejected an earlier bid by the Americans to get him extradited to face the drugs trafficking charge, the judge insisted that the recourse to the speedy-trial clause as grounds for dismissal was premature. He said the indictment had no expiration date. “An original indictment remains pending until it is dismissed or until double jeopardy or due process would forbid prosecution under it.”

Posner would rather the politician come to the US to stand trial and during that process renew his bid for dismissal of charges on the basis of the speedy trial clause. The second option would be to apply for the writ of mandamus – as he has done – but now while facing trial.

Kashamu’s 16-year battle to extricate himself from his legal nightmare began in May 1998 when he was charged in an indictment by a Chicago grand jury along with 13 others of allegedly conspiring to import and distribute heroin into the United States.

Following that indictment, Kashamu who was then living in Benin Republic travelled to Britain and was held at the request of the US authorities.

He recounts that event thus: “In December 1998, I travelled to London as part of my business activities. I recall that it was a Friday afternoon at the city airport in London. I had on me between 300,000 and 400,000 pounds. The police asked how I got the money and I showed them documents. Not knowing what was in their mind, I was asked to come back on Monday for the money because they wanted to carry out an investigation. I left them and went to my house in London.

“If it were somebody involved in any shady deal, he would have run away. But I did not run away. I went back to the police on my own volition the following Monday. It was when I got there that they told me about the drug case. I was told that the suspects in the case had mentioned an ‘Alaji’ as the leader of the ring and that it was believed that I was the one. I was told that there was an international arrest warrant for my arrest issued by the United States. That was the beginning of my nightmare in the hands of American authorities. I was detained and an application for my extradition to the US was made to the British Courts by the US authorities through the British Crown Prosecution Service.

“I declared from the moment of my arrest that I was not the person involved in the alleged narcotics business and that this was a case of mistaken identity. As a result, an identification parade was conducted by the British authorities and the leader of the confessed criminals in the US clearly stated that I was not the man they knew as ‘Alaji’. However, the US authorities decided not to reveal this information to the British court and were able to secure an order in their favour in 1998 for my extradition to the US.

“Fortunately for me, the result of the identification parade came into the hands of my lawyers early in 1999 before I could be taken to the US and they immediately commenced a Habeas Corpus action in the English High Court, Queens Bench division, for my release and the vacation of the committal order made by the court.

“The English High Court in December 1999 delivered its judgment in which it agreed that the order for my committal was  null and void having been the product of unfair proceedings in which exculpatory evidence had been suppressed by the prosecutor. The US authorities did not appeal that decision but immediately had me rearrested and commenced a second extradition process against me at the Bow Street Magistrate Court in England before District Judge Tim Workman.

“The Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) sent two of its top operatives to give oral evidence and to be cross examined during the proceedings. This trial lasted three years with several witnesses attending the trial to give oral evidence before the court, and mountains of documents being tendered.”

In the end the judge declined to extradite him on the ground that Kashamu’s brother was one of the co-conspirators mentioned in the Chicago indictment. Following his release, Kashamu returned to Nigeria to pick up the pieces of his life. Unfortunately for him, the unresolved US indictment continues to follow him like a shadow.

Again, he’s forced to respond to what he terms “misconceptions on my efforts to obtain justice within the US judicial system.” He says he’s doing this so people are not misled. His lawyers are currently exploring opportunities available for appealing Posner’s September judgment.

Shedding light on his reservations regarding the judgment, he said: “Before my political adversaries begin the usual perversion of truth, I wish to underline that Judge Posner ignored the facts on record and the findings of the English courts in coming to his conclusions that: I have no rights under the American Constitution because I have never been in the United States and, ‘It would be very odd that someone with so attenuated a connection to the United States would have rights under the US Constitution.’

“The Judge also ruled that, ‘But no matter; even if the government is incorrect and Kashamu does have constitutional rights, he still loses, because they haven’t been violated.’

“I want to note that in working his way to these conclusions, he had already made, Judge Posner wrongly finds that only two options are available to me: The first is to ‘return’ to the US which I had never visited and ‘stand trial and at the trial renew his motion for dismissal on the basis of the speedy trial clause’ and second ‘is to obtain from us, as he is trying to do, a writ of mandamus ordering the District Court to dismiss the indictment.’

“Judge Posner came to these wrong conclusions to create a scenario of a stalemate between me and the US authorities whereby he states that I will not come to the U.S. to fall into the clutches of the US judiciary and that the US authorities in turn have little hope of ever extraditing me to the US in view of my prominence in Nigeria and the findings of the British courts, thus he then concludes: ‘as he won’t risk the first path to relief, which would require him to come to the United States and fall into the clutches of the federal judiciary, he must rely entirely on mandamus’

“He then proceeds to reject the application for mandamus for the reason that I have not come to the US to ‘face the judicial music.’

“Judge Posner in building the stalemate scenario then expresses his disbelief in the US Government’s statement, in response to my application, that it has now found the atmosphere in Nigeria more favourable for my extradition to the US and responds to their vaunted optimism thus: ‘But the government may be whistling in the dark in saying that it’s optimistic about being able to extradite him from Nigeria (no doubt it was opti­mistic about being able to extradite him from the United Kingdom). The proof of the pudding is in the eating: the government has not tried to extradite Kashamu from Nigeria and for all we know may be feigning “optimism” in order to un­dermine Kashamu’s claim that the threat of extradition is a sword of Damocles disrupting his life with­out our government’s having to undergo the expense and uncertainty of seeking extradition of a foreign big shot exonerated (though only partly) by the judiciary of our British ally. Given Kashamu’s prominence in Nigerian business and government circles, and the English Magistrate’s findings and conclusion, the probability of extradition may actually be low.’

“Judge Posner in conclusion, for the above reason, finds in favour of the US government, that it has no duty to attempt any extradition of any suspect charged for an offence in the US since all it needs do is to inform that suspect that a charge has been made against him in the US and that suspect thereupon be­comes duty bound to take the next plane to the US at his own expense to challenge the charge and prove his innocence.

“Mr. Posner feigned ignorance of the statistics that show a serious racial prejudice against blacks and foreigners (especially from de­veloping countries) by the mainly white dominated federal judiciary of the United States. However, his own prejudice is quite patent in the casual manner he has treated this important matter and attempts to call a dog a bad name in order to hang it.

“The use of the phrase “though only partly” to qualify his own concession that the British judiciary had ‘exonerated’ me again shows that Judge Posner either lacks a thorough grasp of his own record or is being mischievous. The statement of the British court which he refers to as only part exoneration is as follows: ‘As a result of the evidence that the Defence has placed before me and the evidence which the government has tendered in rebuttal, I find the following facts: that the defendant has a brother who bears a striking resemblance to him; I am satisfied that the defendant’s brother was one of the co-conspirators in the drugs importation which involved Catherine and Ellen Wolters… I am however satisfied that the overwhelming evi­dence here is such that the identification evidence, already tenuous, has now been so undermined as to make it incredible and valueless. In those circumstances, there is then no prima facie case against the defendant and I propose to discharge him.’

“If this clear judgment of ‘the judiciary of their British ally’ is only part exoneration I wonder what more the US judges want or what is really behind this persecution.

“Although the US court in its extant ruling has doubted the likelihood of the US authorities pressing any extradition charges against me, describing any such attempt as “whistling in the dark”, I would not give up. In fact, some of my friends and associates have advised that since I had been exonerated by the British courts on the basis of the same allegations with the full representation of the US authorities, as represented by its prosecutor, one Mr. A Coleman, I should stop further litigations, especially since an ‘indictment’ is not a judgment, I insist that I will fight the purported indictment to its logical conclusion because I am innocent of the allegations.

“Many of those who do not understand the history of the case have either wondered why the Nigerian government has not handed me over to the US authorities or why have I not voluntarily turned in myself. My response to the first set of people is that it is not about the US authorities or the Nigerian government requesting for me or handing me over, it is about the law and due process that has to be fol­lowed. It seems to me that but for some vested interests, the US that is the bastion of democracy, equity and justice would not embark on this kind of a wild goose chase.

“We live in a world governed by laws and conventions. We are not in a banana republic where someone can be abducted to face fresh round of trial after two competent courts had exonerated one.

“It is quite simplistic for anyone to think that a sovereign government would just hand over its citizens to another sovereign state on the mere suspicion of involvement in an alleged crime that had been tested and found to be unfounded. Other countries of the world would never sheepishly surrender their own, especially where the citizen had been arrested, tried and acquit­ted of the spurious allegations.

“And to the second school of thought, my response is that I was tried by one of the world’s best judiciary, with a U.S-appointed prosecutor prosecuting me and the British courts found that I was not the one involved in the alleged crime. Do they want to say that I was never arrested, tried and exonerated of the same allegations? If they can forfeit their freedom, I cannot.

“With the findings and conclusions of the British courts which Mr. Posner himself referred to, I do not have any case to answer. If they were sure that I was the same person, why did they not appeal the two British court judgments that exonerated me?

“Anyone who has suffered the indignity of being denied his freedom, especially unjustly as in my case, would appreciate what it means to regain it, more so in a foreign land where you have the remotest pos­sibility of victory with a trial that lasted four years and over 46 court appearances. I appreciate my exoneration and the freedom, which the British courts had given me and I am not about to forfeit it in order to satisfy anyone. I went through a full trial by a court of competent jurisdiction and was exonerated. And for over a decade now, the US authorities have not appealed the two British court judgment that exonerated me. I was released in the presence of the American prosecutors. I went to my residence in London, stayed there for sometime before I returned to Benin Republic and then Nigeria.

“If only most people knew the kind of battle I waged against the US authorities, they would know that the victory and freedom that I enjoy today were hard fought and won. It might interest you to note that my case was cited in the British Law books (Nicholls, Montgomery, And Knowles on The Law of Extradition and Mutual Assistance. Third Edition 2013. See R v Governor of Brixton Prison, ex p Kashamu, 6 Oct 2000, CO/2141/2000, Pp 6.50, 7.59) as the first person to test and benefit from Article 5 (4) of the European Convention on Human Rights in 2000.

“In the citations mentioned, the British court as per Pill LJ quashed the committal order against me because of ‘serious non-disclosure by the Government of the United States of America.’ The ‘serious non-disclosure’ referred to is the suppression of the identity evidence showing that I was not guilty of wrongdoing.

“The court also agreed with my submission that my arrest and de­tention were done in bad faith, an abuse of power, and in violation of Article 5 (4) of the European Con­vention on Human Rights.

“I do not believe that justice has been done. And it is not over yet. The facts of the matter, which should be restated are that:

% The heart of a criminal matter or extradition is identification. The criminals said I was not the one who conspired with them and also disowned what was supposed to be my voice recording during several telephone conversations

% The telephone number and address that were used was not mine. They were found to be my step brother’s.

% There were proofs that even two years after I had been arrested and detained, members of the syndicate still continued their illicit transactions with my half brother, transferring over $2 million to the Bank of Africa in the Republic of Benin. The Interpol discovered the account in the course of their in­vestigations at the instance of the US Authorities and made it part of the evidence tendered in the British courts.

% I have never stepped my feet into the US, neither do I have any business there.

% I was wrongly accused, arrested, tried and freed over the same indictment that the US authorities have refused to drop even when they were fully represented in all the proceedings in the United King­dom. Indeed, my arrest, detention and trial were at its behest and the US authorities fully participated in the whole proceedings. If after a full trial on the basis of the same allega­tion, the British courts exonerated me, which other indictment are they talking about? What happens to the general principle of International Law on double-jeopardy? It is com­monsensical that even without any judicial pronouncement the indict­ment is technically dead. It cannot possibly be awaken again.”

Kashamu vows to fight the case to its logical conclusion and says he won’t withdraw from public life because of his legal troubles.

“I do not have anything to hide. That is why I can freely associate with people in the course of my business and political activities. None with such a sordid past, as my detractors would want to ascribe to me, can be bold enough to come to the open to fight the kind of popular causes that I have championed, not with the kind of opposition stacked against me.”

The recent judgment of a United States 7th Circuit Court of Appeal dismissing politician and businessman, Prince Buruji Kashamu’s, second bid to quash an indictment over drug trafficking charges, could not have come at a worse time for him. As chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Contact, Organisation and Mobilisation Committee in the South West, he is battling to assert himself as the ruling party’s pre-eminent figure in the zone – a task made more difficult by the ammunition which the judicial setback has provided for his political rivals. But in this report by Festus Eriye, Kashamu insists that he’s being wrongly accused and prosecuted by the US for an offence he didn’t commit, and one for which a British court had absolved him.

 

In denying his petition for a writ of mandamus, Justice Richard A. Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, made this tongue-in-cheek observation: “If he (Kashamu) wants to fight the charges, he has only to fly from Lagos to Chicago; there are loads of reasonably priced flights. See Priceline.com, ‘Cheap Flights from Lagos, Nigeria, to Chicago, IL.”

The PDP chieftain is not amused by the American jurist’s attempt at levity. He says: “Mr. Posner apparently intent on changing a fundamental principle of criminal and International Human rights law, places upon a suspect who has never been in the US before (merely upon being informed of allegations against him before a US court) the responsibility to buy a cheap ticket from www. priceline.com, come to the US to surrender himself into the arms of the US judiciary (to prove his innocence of the charges against him?) and, as recommended by him, in my case, to face a possible life sentence before a judge whose mind is already made up even without evidence.”

For Kashamu, the allurement to fly to the United States of his own accord and expense to taste American justice is clearly uninviting. He says it is akin to telling someone who had been miraculously healed of cancer to bring it upon himself again just to show off the miraculous powers of his God.

Events leading to Posner’s September 15 ruling were triggered by a motion filed earlier this year by Kashamu in which he sought a dismissal of the indictment against him on grounds that the court had no personal jurisdiction over him because he had never been in the US. He also argued that the speedy-trial clause of the Sixth Amendment bars his prosecution because the American government has not sought for his extradition for 11 years.

While acknowledging that Kashamu had never been to the US, as well as the fact that the British court had rejected an earlier bid by the Americans to get him extradited to face the drugs trafficking charge, the judge insisted that the recourse to the speedy-trial clause as grounds for dismissal was premature. He said the indictment had no expiration date. “An original indictment remains pending until it is dismissed or until double jeopardy or due process would forbid prosecution under it.”

Posner would rather the politician come to the US to stand trial and during that process renew his bid for dismissal of charges on the basis of the speedy trial clause. The second option would be to apply for the writ of mandamus – as he has done – but now while facing trial.

Kashamu’s 16-year battle to extricate himself from his legal nightmare began in May 1998 when he was charged in an indictment by a Chicago grand jury along with 13 others of allegedly conspiring to import and distribute heroin into the United States.

Following that indictment, Kashamu who was then living in Benin Republic travelled to Britain and was held at the request of the US authorities.

He recounts that event thus: “In December 1998, I travelled to London as part of my business activities. I recall that it was a Friday afternoon at the city airport in London. I had on me between 300,000 and 400,000 pounds. The police asked how I got the money and I showed them documents. Not knowing what was in their mind, I was asked to come back on Monday for the money because they wanted to carry out an investigation. I left them and went to my house in London.

“If it were somebody involved in any shady deal, he would have run away. But I did not run away. I went back to the police on my own volition the following Monday. It was when I got there that they told me about the drug case. I was told that the suspects in the case had mentioned an ‘Alaji’ as the leader of the ring and that it was believed that I was the one. I was told that there was an international arrest warrant for my arrest issued by the United States. That was the beginning of my nightmare in the hands of American authorities. I was detained and an application for my extradition to the US was made to the British Courts by the US authorities through the British Crown Prosecution Service.

“I declared from the moment of my arrest that I was not the person involved in the alleged narcotics business and that this was a case of mistaken identity. As a result, an identification parade was conducted by the British authorities and the leader of the confessed criminals in the US clearly stated that I was not the man they knew as ‘Alaji’. However, the US authorities decided not to reveal this information to the British court and were able to secure an order in their favour in 1998 for my extradition to the US.

“Fortunately for me, the result of the identification parade came into the hands of my lawyers early in 1999 before I could be taken to the US and they immediately commenced a Habeas Corpus action in the English High Court, Queens Bench division, for my release and the vacation of the committal order made by the court.

“The English High Court in December 1999 delivered its judgment in which it agreed that the order for my committal was  null and void having been the product of unfair proceedings in which exculpatory evidence had been suppressed by the prosecutor. The US authorities did not appeal that decision but immediately had me rearrested and commenced a second extradition process against me at the Bow Street Magistrate Court in England before District Judge Tim Workman.

“The Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) sent two of its top operatives to give oral evidence and to be cross examined during the proceedings. This trial lasted three years with several witnesses attending the trial to give oral evidence before the court, and mountains of documents being tendered.”

In the end the judge declined to extradite him on the ground that Kashamu’s brother was one of the co-conspirators mentioned in the Chicago indictment. Following his release, Kashamu returned to Nigeria to pick up the pieces of his life. Unfortunately for him, the unresolved US indictment continues to follow him like a shadow.

Again, he’s forced to respond to what he terms “misconceptions on my efforts to obtain justice within the US judicial system.” He says he’s doing this so people are not misled. His lawyers are currently exploring opportunities available for appealing Posner’s September judgment.

Shedding light on his reservations regarding the judgment, he said: “Before my political adversaries begin the usual perversion of truth, I wish to underline that Judge Posner ignored the facts on record and the findings of the English courts in coming to his conclusions that: I have no rights under the American Constitution because I have never been in the United States and, ‘It would be very odd that someone with so attenuated a connection to the United States would have rights under the US Constitution.’

“The Judge also ruled that, ‘But no matter; even if the government is incorrect and Kashamu does have constitutional rights, he still loses, because they haven’t been violated.’

“I want to note that in working his way to these conclusions, he had already made, Judge Posner wrongly finds that only two options are available to me: The first is to ‘return’ to the US which I had never visited and ‘stand trial and at the trial renew his motion for dismissal on the basis of the speedy trial clause’ and second ‘is to obtain from us, as he is trying to do, a writ of mandamus ordering the District Court to dismiss the indictment.’

“Judge Posner came to these wrong conclusions to create a scenario of a stalemate between me and the US authorities whereby he states that I will not come to the U.S. to fall into the clutches of the US judiciary and that the US authorities in turn have little hope of ever extraditing me to the US in view of my prominence in Nigeria and the findings of the British courts, thus he then concludes: ‘as he won’t risk the first path to relief, which would require him to come to the United States and fall into the clutches of the federal judiciary, he must rely entirely on mandamus’

“He then proceeds to reject the application for mandamus for the reason that I have not come to the US to ‘face the judicial music.’

“Judge Posner in building the stalemate scenario then expresses his disbelief in the US Government’s statement, in response to my application, that it has now found the atmosphere in Nigeria more favourable for my extradition to the US and responds to their vaunted optimism thus: ‘But the government may be whistling in the dark in saying that it’s optimistic about being able to extradite him from Nigeria (no doubt it was opti­mistic about being able to extradite him from the United Kingdom). The proof of the pudding is in the eating: the government has not tried to extradite Kashamu from Nigeria and for all we know may be feigning “optimism” in order to un­dermine Kashamu’s claim that the threat of extradition is a sword of Damocles disrupting his life with­out our government’s having to undergo the expense and uncertainty of seeking extradition of a foreign big shot exonerated (though only partly) by the judiciary of our British ally. Given Kashamu’s prominence in Nigerian business and government circles, and the English Magistrate’s findings and conclusion, the probability of extradition may actually be low.’

“Judge Posner in conclusion, for the above reason, finds in favour of the US government, that it has no duty to attempt any extradition of any suspect charged for an offence in the US since all it needs do is to inform that suspect that a charge has been made against him in the US and that suspect thereupon be­comes duty bound to take the next plane to the US at his own expense to challenge the charge and prove his innocence.

“Mr. Posner feigned ignorance of the statistics that show a serious racial prejudice against blacks and foreigners (especially from de­veloping countries) by the mainly white dominated federal judiciary of the United States. However, his own prejudice is quite patent in the casual manner he has treated this important matter and attempts to call a dog a bad name in order to hang it.

“The use of the phrase “though only partly” to qualify his own concession that the British judiciary had ‘exonerated’ me again shows that Judge Posner either lacks a thorough grasp of his own record or is being mischievous. The statement of the British court which he refers to as only part exoneration is as follows: ‘As a result of the evidence that the Defence has placed before me and the evidence which the government has tendered in rebuttal, I find the following facts: that the defendant has a brother who bears a striking resemblance to him; I am satisfied that the defendant’s brother was one of the co-conspirators in the drugs importation which involved Catherine and Ellen Wolters… I am however satisfied that the overwhelming evi­dence here is such that the identification evidence, already tenuous, has now been so undermined as to make it incredible and valueless. In those circumstances, there is then no prima facie case against the defendant and I propose to discharge him.’

“If this clear judgment of ‘the judiciary of their British ally’ is only part exoneration I wonder what more the US judges want or what is really behind this persecution.

“Although the US court in its extant ruling has doubted the likelihood of the US authorities pressing any extradition charges against me, describing any such attempt as “whistling in the dark”, I would not give up. In fact, some of my friends and associates have advised that since I had been exonerated by the British courts on the basis of the same allegations with the full representation of the US authorities, as represented by its prosecutor, one Mr. A Coleman, I should stop further litigations, especially since an ‘indictment’ is not a judgment, I insist that I will fight the purported indictment to its logical conclusion because I am innocent of the allegations.

“Many of those who do not understand the history of the case have either wondered why the Nigerian government has not handed me over to the US authorities or why have I not voluntarily turned in myself. My response to the first set of people is that it is not about the US authorities or the Nigerian government requesting for me or handing me over, it is about the law and due process that has to be fol­lowed. It seems to me that but for some vested interests, the US that is the bastion of democracy, equity and justice would not embark on this kind of a wild goose chase.

“We live in a world governed by laws and conventions. We are not in a banana republic where someone can be abducted to face fresh round of trial after two competent courts had exonerated one.

“It is quite simplistic for anyone to think that a sovereign government would just hand over its citizens to another sovereign state on the mere suspicion of involvement in an alleged crime that had been tested and found to be unfounded. Other countries of the world would never sheepishly surrender their own, especially where the citizen had been arrested, tried and acquit­ted of the spurious allegations.

“And to the second school of thought, my response is that I was tried by one of the world’s best judiciary, with a U.S-appointed prosecutor prosecuting me and the British courts found that I was not the one involved in the alleged crime. Do they want to say that I was never arrested, tried and exonerated of the same allegations? If they can forfeit their freedom, I cannot.

“With the findings and conclusions of the British courts which Mr. Posner himself referred to, I do not have any case to answer. If they were sure that I was the same person, why did they not appeal the two British court judgments that exonerated me?

“Anyone who has suffered the indignity of being denied his freedom, especially unjustly as in my case, would appreciate what it means to regain it, more so in a foreign land where you have the remotest pos­sibility of victory with a trial that lasted four years and over 46 court appearances. I appreciate my exoneration and the freedom, which the British courts had given me and I am not about to forfeit it in order to satisfy anyone. I went through a full trial by a court of competent jurisdiction and was exonerated. And for over a decade now, the US authorities have not appealed the two British court judgment that exonerated me. I was released in the presence of the American prosecutors. I went to my residence in London, stayed there for sometime before I returned to Benin Republic and then Nigeria.

“If only most people knew the kind of battle I waged against the US authorities, they would know that the victory and freedom that I enjoy today were hard fought and won. It might interest you to note that my case was cited in the British Law books (Nicholls, Montgomery, And Knowles on The Law of Extradition and Mutual Assistance. Third Edition 2013. See R v Governor of Brixton Prison, ex p Kashamu, 6 Oct 2000, CO/2141/2000, Pp 6.50, 7.59) as the first person to test and benefit from Article 5 (4) of the European Convention on Human Rights in 2000.

“In the citations mentioned, the British court as per Pill LJ quashed the committal order against me because of ‘serious non-disclosure by the Government of the United States of America.’ The ‘serious non-disclosure’ referred to is the suppression of the identity evidence showing that I was not guilty of wrongdoing.

“The court also agreed with my submission that my arrest and de­tention were done in bad faith, an abuse of power, and in violation of Article 5 (4) of the European Con­vention on Human Rights.

“I do not believe that justice has been done. And it is not over yet. The facts of the matter, which should be restated are that:

% The heart of a criminal matter or extradition is identification. The criminals said I was not the one who conspired with them and also disowned what was supposed to be my voice recording during several telephone conversations

% The telephone number and address that were used was not mine. They were found to be my step brother’s.

% There were proofs that even two years after I had been arrested and detained, members of the syndicate still continued their illicit transactions with my half brother, transferring over $2 million to the Bank of Africa in the Republic of Benin. The Interpol discovered the account in the course of their in­vestigations at the instance of the US Authorities and made it part of the evidence tendered in the British courts.

% I have never stepped my feet into the US, neither do I have any business there.

% I was wrongly accused, arrested, tried and freed over the same indictment that the US authorities have refused to drop even when they were fully represented in all the proceedings in the United King­dom. Indeed, my arrest, detention and trial were at its behest and the US authorities fully participated in the whole proceedings. If after a full trial on the basis of the same allega­tion, the British courts exonerated me, which other indictment are they talking about? What happens to the general principle of International Law on double-jeopardy? It is com­monsensical that even without any judicial pronouncement the indict­ment is technically dead. It cannot possibly be awaken again.”

Kashamu vows to fight the case to its logical conclusion and says he won’t withdraw from public life because of his legal troubles.

“I do not have anything to hide. That is why I can freely associate with people in the course of my business and political activities. None with such a sordid past, as my detractors would want to ascribe to me, can be bold enough to come to the open to fight the kind of popular causes that I have championed, not with the kind of opposition stacked against me.”