$1.1bn Malabu Fraud: Ex-AGF, Adoke Knows Fate Dec 12
The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, on Wednesday, slated December 12 to determine the admissibility of six extra-judicial statements that allegedly implicated a former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke, SAN, in the $1.1billion Malabu Oil fraud.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, is prosecuting the erstwhile AGF alongside an oil mogul, Aliyu Abubakar, on a 14-count charge.
EFCC had in the charge marked with No: FHC/ABJ/CR/39/ 2017, alleged that Adoke had sometime in August 2013, in Abuja, accepted a cash payment of the dollar equivalent of N300million from Aliyu, and thereby committed an offence punishable under section 16 (2)(b) of the Money Laundering Prohibition Act 2011 (as amended).
Whereas Abubakar was also accused of accepting a cash payment of the sum of $4million from Faman Holdings Limited, through one Abdulhakeem Uthman Mustapha, in September 2013, the prosecution, told the court that Adoke, made structured cash payment in tranches into his Unity Bank Plc Account No. 0020153263.
The anti-graft agency maintained that the former AGF made cash payments that exceeded the approved threshold amounts, outside a financial institution.
Meanwhile, Adoke’s co-defendant, Abubakar, had in the course of the trial, insisted that statements he made before the EFCC in respect of the case, was under duress.
His lawyer, Mr. Paul Erokoro, SAN, challenged the admissibility of the statements which he argued not made voluntarily.
Abubakar raised the issue, midway into the evidence of EFCC’s eight prosecution witness, PW-8, Mr. Ibrahim Ahmed, who was one of the operatives that investigated the matter in 2012.
Sequel to the objection, trial Justice Inyang Ekwo, on December 6, 2021, ordered trial-within-trial to ascertain the voluntariness or otherwise of the defendant’s extrajudicial statement to the EFCC.
Meanwhile, at the resumed proceedings in the matter on Wednesday, all the parties adopted their final written addresses with respect to the trial-within-trial.
Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, who appeared for Adoke, told the court that the disputed statements were made in gross violation of section 17 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015.
He argued that the EFCC coerced the maker of the statements to implicate his client at all cost, in the alleged multi- billion dollars oil fraud.
Besides, he noted that an operative of the EFCC, Mr Bala Sanga, who was deeply involved in the investigation and was around when the statements were obtained from Abubakar, ended up as prosecutor of the same person he interrogated.
He, therefore, prayed the court to reject the statements and not admit them in evidence as exhibits in the matter.
On his part, the prosecution counsel, Mr Ofem Uket, told the court that the defendant made the statements freely, voluntarily and under a conducive atmosphere.
Uket insisted that Abubakar’s lawyer was always with him throughout the period of the investigation, adding that the allegations of duress was an afterthought.
He urged the court to admit the statements in evidence and also rely on same in determining the case against the defendants.
The defendant, Abubakar, had alleged before the court that five EFCC operatives that subjected him to interrogation, compelled him to make the implicating statements.
He alleged that he was asked to implicate former President Goodluck Jonathan and the former AGF, Adoke, so as to be set free from prosecution.
Abubakar told the court that he was severely harrassed, molested and threatened before he succumbed and made the statements.
He told the court that some of the statements were recorded on his behalf by operatives of the anti-graft agency.
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