$3m Bribery Scam: Farouk, Emenalo Beg Court to Quash Charge
$3m Bribery Scam: Farouk, Emenalo Beg Court to Quash Charge
Embattled
former Chairman and Secretary of the House of Representatives Ad-hoc
Committee on fuel subsidy probe, Farouk Lawal and Mr. Boniface Emenalo,
Wednesday, approached Justice Mudashiru Oniyangi of an Abuja High Court,
begging him to quash the 7-count criminal charge that was preferred
against them by the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related
Offences Commission, ICPC.
The
duo who were accused of demanding and collecting bribe from the
Chairman of Zenon Petroleum and Gas Ltd, Femi Otedola, as an inducement
to remove the name of his company from the report of the House of Reps
Ad-hoc committee on Monitoring of fuel subsidy regime, contended that
the anti-graft agency has failed to adduce any credible evidence to
warrant their prosecution.
Arguing
through their lead counsel, Mr. Ricky Tarfa, SAN, the lawmakers who had
on February 1, pleaded not guilty to the charge and subsequently spent
seven days at Kuje Prison, yesterday, insisted that the ICPC was unable
to establish a prima-facie case against them.
Besides,
they argued that going by the totality of the proof of evidence before
the trial court, vis-à-vis the allegation, the court ought not to have
granted the anti-graft agency the leave to prefer the charge against
them, “since the prosecution failed to provide adequate material
necessary for the judge to exercise discretion in favour of the
application for leave.”
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