Former Edo State Commissioner for Arts, Culture and Diaspora Affairs, Osaze Osemwegie-Ero, has expressed his displeasure towards the workings of the Italian justice system, describing it has corrupt.
Osemwegie-Ero lamentations and uncomplimentary assessment of the Italian justice system is spurred by his 19 months incarceration in Italy in 2019 over alleged link to a Mafia organisation.
He alleged that the Italian justice system convicts Nigerians on trumped up charges, adding that forgery and evidence not connected to offences are being used to jail Nigerians.
Osemwegie-Ero made the disclosure while addressing newsmen in Benin on Monday.
Osemwegie-Ero said the draconian Article 416-BIS of the Italian criminal code is mostly used to convict hundreds of Nigerians in Italy.
He, however, expressed happiness that his insistence on his innocence and the privilege of being able to fund his legal team to the tune of over N43m resulted in the discharge of some Nigerians early this year since the trial judge in his case has declared the notorious code illegal.
He said: “As you would recall, while I was travelling to Germany via Amsterdam for an official meeting with the Nigerian Ambassador to Germany, Ambassador M. Tugga, and other Edo indigenes in Germany, to discuss, amongst other issues, ways to retrieve the Benin stolen artefacts, I was arrested and detained at Amsterdam and subsequently extradited to Italy where I was tried on trumped up charges of belonging and even being the kingpin to a Nigerian mafia organisation.
“In the judgment of Honorable Justice Paolo Gallo handed down on 29th May, 2021, His Lordship found and established among other things; that I did not belong to any criminal organisation, and the evidence provided by the prosecution was forged and unacceptable” he said.
He said he became privy to the travails of some 300 Nigerians who were unjustly incarcerated and convinced for “mafia related offences with no evidence to prove that they committed the crimes they were accused of
“It is worthy of note that all these Nigerians were convicted of the same offence using Article 416-BIS of the Italian criminal code, stating that they are members of a Nigerian Mafia organisation involved in the importation and exportation of firearms, drugs, human trafficking, prostitution, extortion, killings, etc.”
He said on October 28, 2020, 70 Nigerians were arrested and charged with the Article 416-BIS and that the only evidence shown on television was a kitchen knife, while on the April 26, 2021, 51 Nigerians were arrested in Bari for the same Mafia related crimes and the evidence shown on television was an old Nigerian movie and an old clip of the Ijaw and Itsekiri community clash adding that Nigerians have been jailed for up to 140 years with a forged mafia manual they call “The green bible,” which he said was the only physical evidence produced by Italian prosecutors during his trial.