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A group called the Coalition of Civil Society Group on Sunday disclosed that it has formally written to the President of the United States of America’s,Barrack Obama,to condemn the planned extradition of businessman and senator-elect, Prince Buruji Kashamu.
According to the group, the plot is an act of abduction, torture and impunity not tenable in United States and international laws.
While speaking to journalists Abuja, the group’s President, Etuk Bassey Williams, said the process had been found damaging. “It is imperative that the war against terror or any other illegality is conducted within the rule of law otherwise those fighting such crimes will lose their moral authority to do so,” he said.
The group said rendition, which is the legal process of sending a suspected criminal to another country to be interrogated or detained, usually for law-enforcement purposes, had been condemned by the United States president during his 2008 presidential campaign.
The letter read in part: “The high rate of erroneous renditions clearly defines its failure thereby making the need for an alternative to be inevitable. It is in lieu of this that we propose that the technique of empathy and non-torture as used by former FBI counter terror agent, Ali Soufan, which has been very effective to be adopted in addition to developing other tactical and operational tradecraft.”
The coalition listed why it was against the policy, saying: “Amnesty International had criticised European countries and the US for operating contrary to basic legal principles and has called on the US to put an end to rendition, conduct independent and thorough investigations in the practice.
“The high rate of erroneous renditions, ineffectiveness of coercive interrogation, and the reason that it instigated an unwarranted war in Iraq, make the practice undesirable.”
The group said the US remained the indisputable hope of the world, imploring it to re-evaluate how it implemented the policy on a tactical, operational and strategic level.
Kashamu’s lawyer had raised the alarm over alleged moves by the United States government to extract his client, a move Kashamu said was the handiwork of opponents.