You Cannot Extradite Abba Kyari To US, Court Tells Federal Government

By Gideon Njoku

A Federal High Court in Abuja has stopped the Federal Government from extraditing disgraced and suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police, DCP Abba Kyari, to the United States of America, USA, to answer to alleged criminal charges against him.

USA’s Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI, had in 2021, shocked Nigerians when it indicted Kyari on criminal charges based on the submissions of an international Internet fraudster, Hishpuppi.

The fraudster, a Nigerian, was arrested in Dubai and extradited to the US. He has since been found guilty, but not before he roped in  Kyari as a beneficiary and supporter of his illegal activities. The FBI had requested Kyari’s extradition  to the US to answer to the charges.

In response, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister for Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN, filed an a suit requesting the Court to order Kyari’s extradition.

But on Tuesday, the Honourable Justice Inyang Ekwo dismissed the case as incompetent and a waste of time, and bereft of merit. He chided Malami for filing the suit when he knew that Kyari was already facing a trial before a competent Court for alleged involvement in drug running.

The Judge expressed surprise that the same Malami, the Nigeria’s Chief Law Officer, who gave the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency a fiat to prosecute Kyari in Court would, in the same breath, file a suit for his extradition to the US.

The law, explained Ekwo, stipulates that until the case against Kyari being prosecuted by the NDLEA, is disposed off, for or against him,  Kyari cannot be extradited to the US to answer to any charges.

Ekwo: ” The AGF could not say that he was unaware of the pending proceeding against the defendant which was entered against him by the NDLEA.

Once a defendant is docked before a Court of competent jurisdiction, Ekwo said, he/she “shall not be surrendered until such case has been discharged either by conviction or acquittal”

Kyari is, presently, an inmate of the Kuje Correctional Centre, Abuja.