* Fixes June 13 for arraignment
Alex Enumah in Abuja
Justice Emeka Nwite of a Federal Excessive Court docket in Abuja, yesterday, granted the applying by the Financial and Monetary Crimes Fee (EFCC) for the previous Governor of Kogi, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, to seem in courtroom for his trial.
Nwite, in a ruling reiterated that an applicant or defendant who disobeyed the orders of a courtroom of competent jurisdiction was not entitled to be heard by the courtroom.
The choose whereas remarking that even when his orders have been issued in error, “the common-or-garden factor for him to do is to make himself obtainable in courtroom.”
The courtroom had in a ruling on April 23, ordered the service of the cost containing cash laundering allegations towards Bello, on his lawyer, Mr. AbdulWahab Mohammed.
The choose had predicated his resolution on grounds that having appeared for Bello within the final proceedings, it was solely correct that Mohammed obtained the cost on behalf of the defendant.
After taking submissions from events, Justice Nwite had fastened Might 10, for ruling.
Delivering ruling yesterday, the courtroom agreed with the EFCC that till Bello makes himself obtainable in courtroom for arraignment, the courtroom can’t take his purposes and even hear him.
Nwite within the ruling lamented that regardless of Bello’s consciousness of the courtroom’s orders made on April 17 and 18 and the service of the cost on April 23, the defendant blatantly refused to seem in courtroom within the guise of pending purposes, including that the conduct of the defendant, “clearly exhibits his intention to not seem earlier than the courtroom”.
In keeping with the choose, his orders for the arrest and arraignment of Bello subsisted till it was put aside, declaring that the defendant’s refusal to obey his orders are deliberate ploy to truncate the trial.
The choose said that Bello “can’t sit within the consolation of his home” whereas his attorneys are submitting numerous purposes to frustrate the trial.
In the meantime, the choose berated counsel representing Bello for permitting their shopper to take the courtroom without any consideration and ordered that till Bello seems earlier than the courtroom, none of his purposes will be taken.
Justice Nwite additionally refused an try by Bello’s lawyer to defer the arraignment of the defendant pending the end result of an enchantment on the Abuja Division of the Court docket of Attraction.
Mohammed, who had alleged that Bello’s security is a significant concern, prayed for time to convey Bello to courtroom, including that “we don’t know the place he’s”.
EFCC’s lawyer, whereas assuring that nothing would occur to Bello, said that the fee has by no means killed anybody and wouldn’t begin with the previous Kogi governor.
Following the pledge that he would do every little thing to convey Bello in courtroom, Justice Nwite subsequently adjourned until June 13 for Bello’s arraignment.
The courtroom had in a ruling on April 17, ordered the EFCC to arrest Bello and produce him in courtroom on Thursday, April 18, for arraignment.
Nevertheless, an try to arrest Bello at his Abuja residence on April 17, was foiled by alleged particular person with immunity.
Since then the whereabouts of Bello stay unclear.
Others to be arraigned alongside Bello, based on the 19-count prison cost are his nephew, Ali Bello, who’s the Chief of Workers to incumbent Governor Ododo, one Dauda Suleiman and Abdulsalam Hudu.
Particularly, the anti-graft company is accusing the trio of laundering the whole sum of N80, 246, 470, 088.88, belonging to the state.
A part of the cost towards the defendants reads:
“That you simply, Yahaya Adoza Bello, Ali Bello, Dauda Suliman, and Abdulsalam Hudu( Nonetheless at massive), someday, in February, 2016, in Abuja inside the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court docket, conspired amongst yourselves to transform the whole sum of N80, 246,470, 088.88 (Eighty Billion, Two Hundred and Forty Six Million, 4 Hundred and Seventy Thousand and Eight 9 Naira, Eighty Eight Kobo), which sum you moderately should have identified varieties a part of the proceeds of your illegal exercise to wit, prison breach of belief and also you thereby dedicated an offence opposite to Part 18(a) and punishable below Part 15(3) of the Cash Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011 as amended.”
