The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago has upheld a lower court’s decision to dismiss Nigerian Senator Buruji Kashamu’s lawsuit against the U.S. government, the Chicago Tribune reported yesterday.
The American government is attempting to have Mr. Kashamu extradited from Nigeria to the U.S. in order to prosecute him for drug trafficking.
Mr. Kashamu was indicted in 1998 for running a heroin syndicate in Chicago. He then fled the country and proceeded to successfully run for Senate in 2015. Mr. Kashamu currently represents Ogun State East in the National Assembly’s upper chamber.
In 2015, the senator filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice in an attempt to prevent U.S. law enforcement from “abducting” him in Nigeria. He alleged that the U.S. was conspiring with his political enemies in Nigeria to have him abducted.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) collaborated with the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) in Nigeria to raid Mr. Kashamu’s Lagos home and abduct him in order to extradite him to the U.S. A Nigerian court, however, order the DEA to leave, saying it was illegal for the agency to arrest him on Nigerian soil.
In Monday’s court ruling, Judge Richard Posner ruled that no law prevents U.S. law enforcement agents from “ being present when foreign officers are effecting an arrest or from assisting foreign officers who are effecting an arrest,” the Chicago Tribune reports.
Mr. Kashamu is depicted in the popular American Netflix series, “Orange Is The New Black,” which centers on Piper Kerman, who was tried for money laundering alongside the Ogun East senator
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