By Emmanuel Ogbodo<\/p>\n
Detained Binance executive, Tigran Gambaryan, has outlined seven reasons why the Federal High Court\u2019s decision to deny him bail should be overturned by the Court of Appeal, Abuja. His notice of appeal, dated May 31, 2024, was also referenced by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) during Gambaryan\u2019s second bail application hearing on September 4, 2024.<\/p>\n
Previously, Justice Emeka Nwite rejected Gambaryan\u2019s first bail request, siding with the EFCC’s argument that he posed a flight risk due to the money laundering and foreign exchange violations charges against him and Binance.<\/p>\n
Gambaryan\u2019s lawyer, Mark Mordi, believes the lower court erred in refusing bail for his client, who has been in custody since February 28, 2024. Mordi urged the Court of Appeal to reverse the decision and grant bail under “fair conditions.”<\/p>\n
Here are the seven reasons presented by Gambaryan\u2019s legal team:<\/p>\n
1. Flight Risk Allegations:
\nMordi argued that the lower court wrongly labelled Gambaryan as a flight risk. He emphasised that the charges against him are non-capital offences.<\/p>\n
2. Bail Entitlement:
\nThe lawyer contended that the court failed to fully consider the affidavit evidence in favour of his client and improperly denied bail, as none of the case’s circumstances justified the refusal.<\/p>\n
3. Escape from Custody:
\nMordi dismissed the EFCC’s claim that Gambaryan intended to escape custody through a \u201cbody swap\u201d scheme, calling it baseless.<\/p>\n
4. Reliance on EFCC\u2019s Depositions:
\nGambaryan\u2019s team argued that the lower court improperly relied on the EFCC\u2019s depositions to assert that he would jump bail.<\/p>\n
5. Armenian Citizenship Claims:
\nMordi contended that the court accepted the EFCC\u2019s claim about Gambaryan being Armenian-born without sufficient evidence.<\/p>\n
6. Bail for Foreign Nationals:
\nMordi stressed that Nigerian law does not discriminate between Nigerians and foreign nationals in bail matters, urging the court to impose conditions that would ensure Gambaryan remains for trial.<\/p>\n
7. Co-Suspect\u2019s Escape:
\nThe legal team argued that the escape of Gambaryan\u2019s co-suspect, Nadeem Anjarwalla, should not be grounds to deny his bail, as there was no proof Gambaryan would follow suit.<\/p>\n
The appeal challenges the initial court ruling in the hopes of securing Gambaryan’s release.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Emmanuel Ogbodo Detained Binance executive, Tigran Gambaryan, has outlined seven reasons why the Federal High Court\u2019s decision to deny him bail should be overturned by the Court of Appeal, Abuja. His notice of appeal, dated May 31, 2024, was also referenced by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) during Gambaryan\u2019s second bail application […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":29639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[180],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47229"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47231,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47229\/revisions\/47231"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}