The office of the Attorney-General of the Federation, AGF, and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency,NDLEA, have agreed to drop plans to extradite Ogun State lawmaker, Buruji Kashamu, to the United States of America on allegations of importation of illegal drugs.
This was made known by Kashamu’s counsel, Akin Olujimi, SAN, on Tuesday during the hearing of a suit filed by the lawmaker against the AGF and the NDLEA.
Kashamu had filed contempt charges against the two parties saying that they were planning to abduct and send him to the United States, contrary to the ruling of the court.
But on the resumption of hearing on Tuesday, Olujimi told Justice Gabriel Kolawale that the parties have agreed to stay the extradition plans pending the determination of the appeal which they filed at the appellate court.
Olujimi, therefore, applied for leave to withdraw the suit against the AGF and NDLEA in view of the assurances given that all parties will now face the various cases pending at the Court of Appeal.
Counsels to the AGF and the NDLEA, Tanko Ashang and Mike Kassa respectively, did not object to the withdrawal of the case.
In his ruling, Justice Kolawale granted the leave sought for the withdrawal of the suit to allow the parties pursue their cases at the appellate court.
“In the light of the application to withdraw this suit and to move to Court of Appeal to pursue all pending appeals in respect of the extradition matter, leave is hereby granted for withdrawal of this suit,” the presiding judge ruled.
Earlier in January this year, a United States Appeals court upheld a ruling that Kashamu should face a drug trafficking trial after Chicago prosecutors accused the Nigerian lawmaker of heading a heroin trafficking ring in the 1990s.
But Kashamu in a statement said it was a case of mistaken identity insisting the prosecutors are mistaking him for his dead brother.
He described the ruling of the US Appeal Court as vexatious and malicious, pointing out that he had faced two extradition proceedings in the United Kingdom at the instance of the United States and the British court and it was found to be a case of mistaken identity after four years of trial.