Over 300 Nigerians Illegally Arrested, Languishing In Italian Jails

According to the former commissioner, the young Nigerians are held in Italian maximum prisons because they do not have the resources to access an independent lawyer.

A former Edo State Commissioner for Arts, Culture, Tourism and Diaspora Affairs, Osaze Osemwingie-Ero, has called for help over the plight of over 300 Nigerian youths ‘illegally’ detained in Italian prisons for contrived charges on mafia-related offences.

At a meeting with officials of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), Mr Osemwingie-Ero disclosed that he learned about the plight of the innocent young Nigerians during his wrongful detention in Italy.

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According to the former commissioner, the young Nigerians are held in Italian maximum prisons because they do not have the resources to access an independent lawyer.

He said the prosecutors in Italy were manipulating the justice system against Nigerians, adding that it became clear to him that “he was a victim of racial discrimination, and manipulation of the Italian Justice System by a very corrupt prosecutor – Dr Stephano Casano”.

Narrating briefly his ordeal in Italy, Osemwingie-Ero said when he interviewed other Nigerians who were incarcerated for charges similar to those levelled against him, it was discovered that a certain ‘Green Bible’ and forged papers that were brought up as evidence against the commissioner, was the same evidence put forward against the others in custody.

When in 2019, Osemwingie-Ero was getting aboard a connecting flight from Amsterdam to Germany, he could never have known that his brief trip would become an Odyssey Journey of 18 months in an Italian prison, for a crime he knew nothing about.

He was to meet with Yusuf Tuggar, the then Nigerian Ambassador to Germany, and the business was simply – the Benin Artifacts Campaign.

At the airport, security operatives picked him up, and swiftly, he was accused of being a member of what the Italian prosecutors called the ‘Nigerian Mafia’.

Article 416 Bis of the Italian Criminal Code outlines what a Mafia-type organization is and the punishment for perpetrators of these kinds of crimes.
According to the former commissioner, it is upon article 416 that many Nigerians are being detained in Italy, with no solid evidence of any crime committed.

Enters then a forged manual called the Green Bible.

Osemwingie-Ero said in a bid to add flesh to their accusations, the Italians produced in court, an evidence known as the Green Bible, which has been used to convict many Nigerians, especially those who had no qualitative legal representation.

“I decided to do the long trial, where the prosecutor was compelled to bring the evidence that he had against me or against the Nigerian association. Only for him to produce a forge manual that he called the Green Bible, which they have used to convict a lot of Nigerians over 200 Nigerians in Italy,” Osemwingie-Ero narrated.

He and his lawyers thoroughly went through the Green Bible and discovered myriads of discrepancies.

“For example, page 14 of that so called Green Bible, paragraph 3 stated that ‘we the criminal organization’ involve in A-Z were there; and I told the judge that I have never seen an organization that will write in their manual that they are a criminal organization.

“On page 31, 32 and 33 of that so called Green Bible, we have a 2017 event of the communique of the Green Circuit Association in Asaba in that book while on page 51 of that so called Green Bible, it said this book was written in 1978 by University of Benin students and I said, how can we have a communique of 2017 event inside a book that was written in 1978,” the former commissioner pointed out.

Bada Amoo