(Bloomberg) -- A Binance Holdings Ltd. executive spent several hours back in a Nigerian court on Tuesday, before a judge adjourned the hearing until October.
Tigran Gambaryan, the head of financial-crime compliance at Binance whom US lawmakers say has been unjustly detained, is standing trial on charges including currency manipulation and money laundering.
He’s been held in the West African nation since February and was sent to prison in April. His current charges were laid by Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. The next hearings were scheduled for Oct. 11 and Oct. 18.
The faceoff between Africa’s most-populous nation and the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange burst into view in February, when Nigerian authorities detained Gambaryan and a colleague – who subsequently escaped – during a visit to discuss the company’s compliance issues with the country.
In an additional twist, Binance in May claimed it was asked for a “secret” payment in cryptocurrency to make its problems in Nigeria “go away” — a suggestion that the authorities deny. The amount in question was $150 million, the New York Times reported separately, citing people it didn’t identify. Nigeria has rejected the allegation.
A US citizen, Gambaryan’s predicament led a group of senior Republican lawmakers to accuse Nigeria of taking him hostage and ask President Joe Biden to help secure his release.
Gambaryan’s six-hour appearance in the courtroom in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, went ahead despite Binance identifying another person to represent the company. While that move prompted the Federal Inland Revenue Service to drop its tax charges against Gambaryan, the EFCC continues to pursue its case against him.
A Nigerian high court judge had previously ruled that Gambaryan could be tried in place of the world’s largest crypto currency exchange because it lacked a local representative.
“I am surprised the EFCC is still pursuing this case despite Binance appointing a local representative,” said Gambaryan’s lawyer, Mark Mordi. “You’d have to ask the EFCC why they haven’t withdrawn the case, since their initial argument was that he was on trial because Binance had no Nigerian agent.”
The EFCC has consistently declined to comment publicly on the case.
The US lawmakers claim he’s in ill health and Gambaryan was pushed into the court in a wheelchair on Tuesday. A prison official said he’d complained of knee pains. A member of his legal team said he was suffering from a herniated disc following months of sleeping on a thin mattress in detention.
Justice Emeka Nwite, who’s presiding over the case, previously ordered that Gambaryan be taken to a hospital outside of the prison service. On Tuesday, he criticized the inability of the Nigerian correctional center to produce a medical report in court.
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