The Federal High Court sitting in Lagos has dismissed an application by a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr Dele Belgore, challenging the money laundering charges made against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
Belgore, through his lawyer, Mr. Ebun Shofunde had, at the proceedings of June 8, filed an application challenging the competence of the charges and urging the judge to quash the charges and set him free.
Mr Shofunde contended that the EFCC failed to attach an affidavit showing that it had concluded the investigation in the case before bringing the case to court. He asked the court to treat this failure as a fundamental breach of the Federal High Court Practice Direction and which renders the charges incompetent.
Justice Rilwan Aikawa has however upheld the EFCC’s argument that the failure to file an affidavit of investigation could not affect the substance of the charges. He held the EFCC has substantially complied with the provisions of Section 396 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015.
The judge also granted the applications by both Belgore and his co-defendant, a former Minister of National Planning, Prof. Abubakar Suleiman seeking the release of their passports to enable them to travel abroad for medical treatment.
The court granted the defendants’ requests to travel to the United Kingdom and India respectively between July 15 and August 8, 2017, to attend to their health.
The defendants were instructed to promptly return their passports to the court’s Deputy Chief Registrar upon their return to the country.
Further proceedings in the case were adjourned until October 3, 2017.
The EFCC had on February 8, 2017, arraigned Belgore and Sulaiman for allegedly collecting N450m out the $115m allegedly doled out by a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, to compromise the 2015 general elections.
