A United States appeals court has upheld a ruling mandating Buruji Kashamu to face a drug trafficking trial, Chicago Tribune reports.
The ruling means that Kashamu can be extradited from Nigeria to the US to answer to the charges.
The senator representing Ogun East constituency was alleged to have been the ringleader of a ’90s heroin cartel in Chicago, one of the biggest cities in the US.
Senator Buruji Kashamu had in April 2015 asked a district court to put a hold on his “abduction abroad by U.S. authorities”.
U.S. Appellate Court Judge Richard Posner on Monday, January 23, 2017 dismissed the complaint and upheld the ruling of the lower court.
According to the court ruling, the attempt by US agents to arrest Kashamu in coordination with Nigerian authorities cannot be termed “an attempted abduction”.
Although several persons indicted in the case had pleaded guilty, Kashamu maintains that his dead brother was responsible for the crimes he’s being accused of.
Kashamu’s case is the inspiration for the popular Netflix show, Orange is the New Black. The character Kubra Balik embodies his alleged crime history.
He was elected into the Nigerian Senate in 2015, under the platform of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP despite being a fugitive from justice in the US since 1998.
The senator from Ogun State has previously beat attempts to extradite him from the United Kingdom and a 2015 attempt in Lagos, Nigeria.
US Drug Enforcement Administration agents joined a team of NDLEA officials in the operation which ended in the anti-drug trafficking agencies laying siege on his home for six days. Kashamu obtained a court order to end the operation after he complained that the operation was an “illegal abduction” because foreign agents were involved in the process.
Kashamu is a controversial figure in Nigerian politics often at loggerheads with his party members. Recently, he slammed the election of Ekiti Governor Ayodele Fayose after he emerged as chairman of the People’s Democratic Party’s Governor’s Forum.
