A Lagos State High Court in Ikeja has fixed November 17, 2015 to rule on a no-case submission filed by three oil marketers charged with N789.6m fuel subsidy fraud.
The defendants are Adamu Maula, George Ogbonna and Emmanuel Morah.
They are being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission alongside their companies, Downstream Energy Sources Limited and Rocky Energy Limited.
The EFCC accused them of obtaining a sum of N789.6m from the Federal Government under the guise that it was subsidy claims on 10,862 metric tonnes of Premium Motor Spirit purportedly imported by them.
The amended 26 counts read to the accused on April 1, 2014 bordered on conspiracy, obtaining money by false pretences, forgery, uttering and use of false documents.
But they had pleaded not guilty to all the counts, following which the prosecution opened its case, calling 11 witnesses and tendering 48 exhibits in the process.
However, upon the conclusion of the prosecution’s case, the defendants filed a no-case application, contending that the EFCC had failed to established a prima facie case against them.
Arguing their separate applications on Tuesday before Justice Lateefa Okunnu, the defence counsel, Prof. Alfred Kasumu (SAN), Mr. Abubakar Shamsudeen and Mr. Eubena Ahmedu, described the charges against their clients as an abuse of court processes.
The defence maintained that the charges were instituted in breach of the due process of the law.
They contended that the totality of the evidence tendered in form of exhibits and witnesses had not established any prima facie case against the accused.
They further argued that the evidence of the prosecution witnesses were inconsistent, saying the court could not rely on them to convict the accused.
The defence equally challenged the jurisdiction of the state high court to entertain the case, saying only a Federal High Court had jurisdiction.
“The entire 26 counts against the applicants all relate to matters over which it is only the Federal High Court that has exclusive jurisdiction as provided in Section 251 (a)(g) (n) and (3) of the 1999 Constitution and Section 19 of the Admiralty Jurisdiction Act,2004.
“The entire evidence led by the prosecution and contents of the 26 counts amended information together with the extant laws, this honourable court lacks the jurisdiction to adjudicate on the information,” the defence argued.
They urged the court to dismiss the charge and set their clients free.
But the prosecution counsel, Mr. Rotimi Jacobs (SAN), urged the court to discountenance the no-case applications and to order the accused to open their defence if they had any.
Jacob maintained that the prosecution’s case had been proven beyond reasonable doubt with its 11 witnesses and 48 exhibits tendered.
After listening to both parties, Justice Okunnu adjourned till November 17, 2014 for ruling.
from The Punch - Nigeria's Most Widely Read Newspaper http://ift.tt/1OiKIzG
via IFTTT
0 comments:
Post a Comment