By 
At the court in Abuja this week, the judgment for Tigran Gambaryan’s bail hearing was adjourned to May 17th 2024, which will be after the trial for the allegations brought against him begins. This means he will continue to stay at Kuje prison until then. May 17th is Tigran’s 40th birthday.
RELATED: Binance statement regarding Tigran Gambaryan
On April 5th, the Chief Magistrate ruled that the original remand order to hold Tigran and his colleague Nadeem Anjarwalla expired on March 12th 2024 and was not renewed. This serves as confirmation that their detention after the remand order expired on March 12th and before the charges were filed on 22 March 2024 was unlawful. Bogus charges of tax evasion and fraud were brought against them on the 22nd and 28th of March – a month after their initial detention.
Tigran pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him on April 8th. His trial starts on May 2nd.
His wife Yuki Gambaryan said, “There is no justice in what is being done to my husband. I am in a constant state of grief and anxiety, not knowing what other injustice he is going to be put through. It is outrageous that Tigran, an innocent man, continues to be kept in a prison cell and the ruling on his bail will not be made until after the trial starts. It looks like he will spend his 40th birthday in prison. This is just pure cruelty.”
NOTES:
- It took the EFCC over 4 weeks to come up with the charges against Tigran.
- Neither Tigran Gambaryan nor Nadeem Anjarwalla are officers of Binance and have no decision making authority. They traveled to Nigeria on February 25th for meetings at the invitation of the Nigerian authorities including the NSA, EFCC, and others to discuss issues relating to law enforcement cooperation, licensing, and compliance.
- U.S. Embassy staff have only visited Tigran once since he was moved to the Kuje prison and he has limited access to his legal team. Through the very short conversations he has been able to have with his wife, he is clearly very distressed and under immense pressure.
