Lagos Magistrate Court, Ebute-Metta, Lagos has fixed Wednesday forruling in the case brought against a black American Mr. Grayson ErnestEugene who was serving a jail term in the United States before hisalleged deportation to Nigeria in error by the American government onDecember 12, 2006. Eugene, 44, is standing trial before Magistrate R.O. Davis on aone-count charge of “an act not warranted by law” which “causesinconvenience or damage to the public by loitering around AmericanEmbassy premises.”
Lagos Magistrate Court, Ebute-Metta, Lagos has fixed Wednesday forruling in the case brought against a black American Mr. Grayson ErnestEugene who was serving a jail term in the United States before hisalleged deportation to Nigeria in error by the American government onDecember 12, 2006. Eugene, 44, is standing trial before Magistrate R.O. Davis on aone-count charge of “an act not warranted by law” which “causesinconvenience or damage to the public by loitering around AmericanEmbassy premises.”

Counselto the accused person from Sola Adabonyan & Co, Mrs  CordeliaChigozie Anyanwu, told the court at the resumed hearing Friday that theaccused person, being an American citizen on wrongful deportation toNigeria, a country where he has no relative and has never visited allhis life, had no where else to go than the American Embassy, havingfound himself in Nigeria for no fault of his. She argued that theAmerican Embassy, or any other embassy for that matter, being theproperty of  citizens of that country, was the only place her client,like any other sensible person, should have gone to in the circumstance.

Shesubmitted that the accused person was not criminally liable as he is avictim of circumstances, stressing that it is shocking and pathetic forher client to be uprooted from the only home he knows just because ofthe colour of his skin, which he has no control over and that theaccused person was acting on the belief that he had every right to beat the American Embassy as an American citizen in accordance with theAmerican Constitution, 14th Amendment Section 1.

The counseltold the court that her client had given his social security number,asking  what stopped the American Embassy, with all theirsophistication, from cross-checking the information provided by herclient, adding that the injustices of her client’s deportation to acountry he has never lived was compounded by the refusal of theAmerican Embassy to take his finger prints and do a DNA test as theaccused person had requested.

Anyanwu urged the court todischarge and acquit her client as there was nothing in the charge tosuggest he visited the American Embassy with intent to commit any crimenor did  the charge suggest her client was a threat, telling the courtthat the embassy officials told his client to produce a third partyconfirmation where he did  not know anybody.

She reminded thecourt that the complainant in the case, the American Embassy, had never been to court and therefore have shown no interest in the case.The accused person had, while giving evidence last Wednesday, told thecourt that he was born on September 3, 1963  in Greenville, SouthCarolina to Mr Grayson  and Ms Sylvia Atkins, adding that he is not aNigerian and had only heard of Nigeria in current affairs where helived at Brooklyn, New York City, which he described as a community ofAfrican blacks.