South African authorities are set to extradite a Nigerian, accused of piracy, to the Netherlands for prosecution.
Itoruboemi Benson Lobia is believed to be the head of a Nigerian pirate syndicate.
According to reports, the Kempton Park Magistrate’s Court on Friday ruled in favour of Lobia’s extradition.
Lobia was captured by SA’s Interpol branch at OR Tambo International Airport last November. He was alleged to have been fleeing to Mauritius following his most recent attack.
Though Lobia insisted he had no links to any pirate syndicate, the government of the Netherlands claimed he was one of the masterminds behind the kidnap of the crew of the Dutch cargo ship FWN Rapide in April 2018.
The ship was travelling between Ghana and Nigeria when it was attacked. Its crew was held hostage for three weeks before being released following an intensive negotiation process.
According to South Africa’s Sunday Times, The Dutch government said he may have also been responsible for other similar attacks and running a syndicate with international connections.
Lobia claimed the authorities have the wrong man, insisting he is actually a soldier of the Nigerian army.
The paper wrote,
Lobia said he was hired as a ships security officer, in charge of protecting the Nigerian waterways, and that the army had hired him as a consultant.
He also claimed he was not fleeing to Mauritius, instead meeting a security contact there who had offered him a job.
Lobia believed the contact’s insistence that they meet in person in Mauritius was part of an elaborate plot by authorities to set him up as the leader of the pirates who kidnapped the FWN Rapide crew.
However, on Friday morning, magistrate William Schutte said it was not up to his court to determine if Lobia was guilty of his maritime crimes, simply to determine if the Dutch government did indeed have enough evidence to prosecute him. “Extradition proceedings are not a criminal trial, and aren’t concerned with determining guilt or innocence,” he said in his ruling.
He noted that the Dutch government had sent a series of authenticated documents, including a forensic report that consisted of witness statements from the Rapide’s crew, and the investigators looking into the case. He also noted that Lobia’s defence team had never disputed the documents’ authenticity, and that his only defence had been that he was not the man authorities were looking for.
He referred to the Rapide witness statements that had described the pirate leader, and noticed how these descriptions accurately portrayed the man in court, including his height, his one pierced ear, his complexion and estimated age.
“The remarkable similarities between his appearance and the witnesses’ descriptions is an inconvenient truth (for Lobia),” he said.
Because of these factors, he ruled that Lobia should be extradited.
However, the magistrate did inform Lobia that he had 15 days to lodge an appeal against the ruling. In the absence of such an appeal, it will be up to justice minister Michael Masutha to sign off on the extradition and send Lobia directly to the Netherlands.
