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Binance Executives File Suit Against Nigeria: Local Media

The two Binance executives held in Nigeria after being invited for consultations filed suit against two government agencies for allegedly violating their human rights.

Updated Mar 29, 2024, 3:03 p.m. Published Mar 29, 2024, 3:01 p.m.
Binance logo (Nikhilesh De/CoinDesk)
Binance logo (Nikhilesh De/CoinDesk)
  • Tigran Gambaryan and Nadeem Anjarwalla filed suit in the Federal High Court saying their human rights had been violated.
  • They had been invited to the country to discuss issues related to Binance and were detained on arrival in February.
  • Anjarwalla, who escaped last week, and Gambaryan are seeking to be released, their passports back and an apology.

The two Binance executives who have been held as guests of the Nigerian government since arriving in the country in February, have sued the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, and the Economic Financial Crimes Commission for violating their fundamental human rights, local media reported Friday.

In separate filings, Tigran Gambaryan, head of financial crime compliance at the world's largest crypto exchange, and Nadeem Anjarwalla, regional manager for Africa, urged the Federal High Court in Abuja to order the agencies to release them, return their passports and issue a public apology, Leadership reported, citing the government-owned News Agency of Nigeria.

The two executives were charged alongside the company earlier this month with four counts of tax evasion by Nigerian authorities. They were detained on arrival in the country after being invited to meet officials to discuss issues related to the company. Anjarwalla reportedly escaped last week after being taken to a mosque for prayers. Central bank governor Olayemi Cardoso has said the company enabled the untraceable movement of billions of dollars worth of naira, and contributed to instability in the currency's exchange rate.

At a hearing on Thursday, the agencies were not represented, Punch reported. The matter was adjourned until April 8.

The suits are FHC/ABJ/CS/356/24 and FHC/ABJ/CS/355/24.



Sheldon Reback

Sheldon Reback is CoinDesk's European news editor. Before joining the company, he spent 26 years as an editor at Bloomberg News, where he worked on beats as diverse as stock markets and the retail industry as well as covering the dot-com bubble of 2000-2002. He subsequently managed the Bloomberg Terminal's main news page before becoming the European editor for a global project to produce short, chart-based stories across the newsroom. His previous work as a journalist took him to Hong Kong, where he reported and edited for several technology magazines, and he also has experience in market research and writing computer manuals. Sheldon has an MBA from the London Business School and an industrial chemistry degree from Brunel University. He owns a small amount of ether.

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