OGUN East Senatorial District senator-elect Alhaji Buruji Kashamu looks set to be extradited to the US to face drug trafficking charges after the government stepped up fresh moves to get him brought to trial.
On September 25, 2009 Judge Charles Norgle of the United States District Court in Chicago, Illinois upheld Mr Kashamu’s indictment by the US government on drug trafficking charges and conspiracy to smuggle heroin into the country. Just elected as the senator for Ogun East in the March 28 elections, Alhaji Kashamu was described by the US government as the kingpin of a drug cartel.
Also, the US government accused him of using fraudulent means to obtain a German visa in 2009, adding that he communicated with German officials using the name Buruji Kashamu Shodipe instead of Buruji Kashamu. According to the US government, Alhaji Kashamu was indicted under the name Buruji Kashamu and the warrant of arrest against him was issued in that same name.
Following his recent election in which he won the Ogun East seat on the platform of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) with 99,540 votes to defeat his nearest opponent who polled 84,001 votes, Alhaji Kashamu thought he would be immune from prosecution. However, according to his lawyer Ajibola Oluyede, the US government has renewed its attempts to get hi8m extradited.
In a petition to the National Human Rights Commission, Mr Oluyede also accused former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, of being behind the plot to extradite his client. He added that there had been moves by US officials within the region to secure the assistance of the head of the Interpol division in Nigeria, Solomon Arase, a deputy inspector general of police, to arrest and Alhaji Kashamu without following the due process required by the Nigeria Extradition Act.
Mr Oluyede said: “Mr Kashamu’s informant revealed that Arase has confirmed that Donna Chabot approached him in January 2015. The said Ms Chabot is an attaché with the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the American Embassy in Dakar, Senegal and requested that Interpol Nigeria assist in the abduction of Kashamu for the purpose of his forcible transportation to the US to face trial before Judge Norgel.”
Trouble started for Alhaji Kashamu when in March 1994, defendant Kary Hayes, a passenger arriving at O’Hare International Airport from Zurich, Switzerland, was arrested after he tried to smuggle a suitcase containing approximately 14.16 pounds of heroin into the US. Mr Hayes was one of a long line of couriers in a heroin smuggling operation allegedly led by Alhaji Kashamu.
Following the arrest, the government charged Hayes and other couriers after this initial arrest and they cooperated and provided information about their contacts with Alhaji Kashamu. On May 21, 1998, a grand jury charged Alhaji Kashamu and others in a Second Superseding Indictment with conspiracy to import heroin into the United States in violation of Title 21, United States Code, Section 963.
One of the couriers, defendant Ellen Wolters, had a romantic relationship with Alhaji Kashamu and telephone records, showed calls from the couriers to his residence in Benin. Alhaji Kashamu was ordered detained following his December 1998 arrest and he was incarcerated in London’s Brixton Prison during the pendency of extradition proceedings based on the government’s warrant in the instant case.
