The U.S. government has urged Nigeria to release Tigran Gambaryan, an employee of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, who was arrested in Nigeria in February and faces worsening conditions in prison, the New York Times reported, citing two people familiar with the matter. health problems.
Tigran Gambaryan is Binanceâs head of financial crimes compliance and previously worked as a criminal investigator for the U.S. Treasury Department. In February this year, he and Binanceâs regional manager for Africa, Nadeem Anjarwalla, were invited by the Nigerian government to attend a high-level meeting on Binanceâs compliance issues in the country. However, the countryâs government later accused the exchange of destabilizing the countryâs currency and detained the two top officials.
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Two senior U.S. State Department officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the detention of Tigran Gambaryan has become an important factor in U.S. diplomatic relations with Nigeria. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised the issue in May with Nigerian officials, including the ambassador to Nigeria. Other U.S. diplomats, including Nigeria's president, the finance minister, the attorney general and the trade minister, also called for Gambaryan's release in private conversations with Nigeria's president, finance minister, attorney general and trade minister.
Officials familiar with the matter said Gambaryan, 40, suffered from malaria and health problems caused by a herniated disc, and U.S. diplomats argued he should be released on humanitarian grounds. Gambaryan's family said he was denied adequate medical attention, causing his health to rapidly deteriorate.
Nigerian prosecutors charged Gambaryan and Binance with tax evasion and money laundering, and while the tax evasion charges against Gambaryan have been dropped, other charges remain pending. Binance denies the accusations and argues that Gambaryan was only a mid-level executive and should not be held responsible for the companyâs actions.
A representative of Nigeria's federal government said on Thursday that Gambaryan had access to medical care from qualified doctors, calling "the court the right forum to assess the merits of any litigation." Bayo Onanuga, an adviser to Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, said U.S. Ambassador Richard M. Mills Jr met this month with the presidentâs chief of staff, national security adviser and other officials. "Negotiations are still ongoing. The government will do its best to act within the legal framework, keeping in mind the humanitarian rights of Gambaryans," Onanuga said.
Gambaryan's attorney, Robert S. Litt, argued that the charges were fabricated by Nigerian authorities who knew Gambaryan was innocent. Litt has urged the State Department to invoke a four-year-old law, the Levinson Act, to characterize Gambaryan as "wrongfully detained." That would be a significant escalation and could open the door to sanctions or other punitive action against individual Nigerian officials.
The State Department has not ruled out taking such action and is monitoring the case for signs of foul play, officials familiar with the matter said. One of the officials familiar with the matter said the U.S. government still has some confidence in Nigeria's judicial system. However, a person close to the Nigerian president revealed that local officials believe that the United States is interfering in the country's judicial process and do not view this as a humanitarian issue.
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