US lawmakers have urged President Joe Biden to take up the case of a US Binance executive detained in Nigeria.
in letter Representatives of the House of Representatives, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Presidential Special Envoy for Hostage Issues Roger D. Carstens, and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (Republican, Texas), who were dispatched to the White House, called for ‘immediate action’ in response to this incident. Tigran Gambaryan claimed his “health and well-being are at risk.”
Gambaryan, a US citizen who heads Binance’s financial compliance department, has been detained in Nigeria since February and faces money laundering charges worth up to $35 million.
In the letter, the US House of Representatives described the charges against Gambarian as “baseless” and claimed they were “a coercive tactic by the Nigerian government to extort his employer.” According to the charges, Gambarian should be considered a “citizen of the United States wrongfully detained by a foreign government” under the provisions of the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act.
Gambarian is being held in the “notorious Kuje Prison, known for its harsh conditions” and has been denied access to his legal team without the presence of Nigerian government officials and armed guards, the letter said. In the latest “extremely shocking” development, the letter says Gambarian was admitted to hospital after collapsing in court, but the prison did not fully comply with court orders and he was denied adequate medical care.
“Immediate action is essential to ensure his safety and protect his life,” said the letter, signed by 16 lawmakers, calling for the Gambarian case to be transferred to the Office of the President’s Special Representative for Hostage Affairs.
Gambarian and his colleague Nadeem Anjarwalla were detained in February after traveling to Nigeria at the invitation of the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to discuss Binance’s activities in the country. It is done.
The pair were then detained without charge for 14 days under a court order as state authorities conducted an investigation into the cryptocurrency exchange. The extension was later granted at a hearing in mid-March. After Anjarwalla escaped custody and fled Nigeria, Nigeria’s Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) filed charges of tax evasion against Anjarwalla and Gambaryan, as well as the exchange.
Days later, the EFCC charged Binance, Anjarwala, and Gambarian with money laundering, and Gambarian was later transferred to a prison run by the country’s anti-corruption agency.
Gambarian has sued the Nigerian government for illegal detention, and Binance CEO Richard Teng has called for his release, claiming the executive is being held in a “dangerous prison to control Binance.”
Edited by Stacey Elliott.
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