The Federal Government has commenced moves to extradite a suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari, to face fraud charges in the United States of America.
Vanguard Newspaper reports that the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami, filed an extradition application at the Federal High Court in Abuja following a request by the Diplomatic Representative of the U.S. Embassy in Abuja.
The request from the U.S. authorities, according to Mr Malami, is “for the surrender of Abba Alhaji Kyari, who is a subject in a superseding three counts indictment”.
The AGF said in the application that he was satisfied that the offences in respect of which Mr Kyari’s surrender was sought were neither political nor trivial.
This comes some weeks after Mr Malami said in an interview on Channels Televison that there were ongoing extradition talks between the Nigerian and U.S. governments over the pending charges against the suspect in the U.S.
Mr Malami said in the interview that reasonable grounds were already established to proceed against Mr Kyari on the basis of the allegations against him.
The U.S. government, in July 2021, named Mr Kyari, a celebrated police officer, among co-conspirators of Ramon Abass, aka Huspuppi, an Instagram celebrity, in a multi-million-dollars money laundering fraud.
Hushpuppi is awaiting judgement after pleading guilty to the charges in a separate case filed at the Central District Court of Central District of California.
Mr Kyari is named among five of Hushpuppi’s conspirators in a $1.1 million fraud charge approved by a U.S. grand jury.
Mr Kyari, while on suspension over his role in the Hushpuppi’s case, was fingered by the NDLEA in a 25kg cocaine deal earlier this year.
The anti-narcotic agency, on February 22, 2022 obtained an order of the Federal High Court in Abuja to detain him and his co-suspects for two weeks.
The two weeks period has yet to lapse.
