The five-year $500,000 bribery trial of
the former Chairman of the House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee on
Fuel Subsidy, Mr. Farouk Lawan, has suffered another huge setback due to
the transfer of the case by the Chief Judge of the High Court of the
Federal Capital Territory, Justice Ishaq Bello, from one judge to
another.
According to the report, the3 documents obtained from the Federal Ministry of Justice revealed that Justice Bello’s decision to reassign the case was connected with a petition dated March 21, 2017, by Lawan, accusing the immediate past trial judge, Justice Angela Otaluka, of bias in her handling of the trial.
It was gathered that Justice
Bello withdrew the case from Justice Otaluka of the Lugbe Division of
the FCT High Court and transferred it to Court 32 of the Jabi Division.
Court 32 is presided over by Justice
Yusuf Halilu, who will be the fourth judge that will handle the case
since it was filed in 2012.
With the transfer of the case from
Justice Otaluka to Justice Halilu, the case has to start from the
beginning with a fresh arraignment of the defendant before the new
judge.
A hearing notice served by Justice
Halilu’s court on both the prosecution and the defence was part of the
documents obtained from the Federal Ministry of Justice.
The hearing notice, dated June 7, 2017, showed that Justice Halilu’s court had fixed June 20 for the mention of the case.
It implies that the case will now come a day before the June 21 date earlier scheduled by Justice Otaluka to continue the trial.
Federal Government is prosecuting Lawan
before Justice Otaluka on three counts of corrupt collection of
$500,000 out of the $3m bribe he allegedly requested from the Chairman
of Zenon Petroleum and Gas Limited, Mr. Femi Otedola.
Lawan was accused of accepting $500,000
as a bribe for the removal of Otedola’s company’s name, Zenon Petroleum
and Gas Limited, from the list of firms indicted by the Lawan-led House
committee for allegedly abusing the fuel subsidy regime in 2012.
The prosecution was nearing the end of
its case, having called four out of its five proposed witnesses, when
the Chief Judge suddenly withdrew the case from Justice Otaluka and
re-assigned it to Justice Halilu.
With four of the proposed witnesses having testified, the prosecution was left to call Otedola as its last witness.
This is the second time a petition by
Lawan, alleging bias against the trial judge, will cause the Chief Judge
to transfer the case to a new judge.
The bribery case was withdrawn from the
trial judge, Justice Mudashiru Oniyangi, and reassigned after Lawan lost
his preliminary objection to the charges at the Court of Appeal.
On November 18, 2014, the second trial
judge, Justice Adebukola Banjoko, who was presiding over the case in
Gudu Division of the FCT judiciary, withdrew from the case over
allegation of likelihood of bias levelled against her by Lawan.
Lawan had, in a petition to the Chief
Judge of the FCT High Court, seeking the reassignment of the case to
another judge, stated that Justice Banjoko was likely to be biased.
This, Lawan said, was because the judge
and her family were allegedly close to Otedola, whom he (Lawan) said was
a proposed prosecution witness and his (Lawan’) accuser.
Apart from the petition, Lawan had also,
through his counsel, Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), filed a motion before
Justice Banjoko, asking her to disqualify herself from further handling
the case on the same grounds of likelihood of bias.
He had, in the two documents, alleged
that Justice Banjoko voluntarily withdrew from the case and ordered the
case file to be returned to the FCT Chief Judge, Justice Ibrahim Bukar,
despite the withdrawal of the motion filed by Lawan.
A letter by the private prosecuting
counsel, Chief Adegboyega Awomolo (SAN), seeking the AGF’s “directive as
to the next line of action”, described Lawan as being “notorious for
making undeserved allegation when he feels he is likely to lose”.
0 comments:
Post a Comment