BEVERLY HILLS, March 14, (THEWILL) – A Federal High Court in Lagos has fixed March 23 to rule on the admissibility of a list of beneficiaries of funds in the ongoing trial of a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Dele Belgore, charged with money laundering.
Belgore is charged alongside a former Minister of National Planning, Prof. Abubakar Sulaiman, and a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Allison-Madueke, who is said to be at large.
They were first arraigned in February but were subsequently re-arraigned on March 13, following the amendment of the charges to include the name of Allison-Madueke.
They had pleaded not guilty to the charges and were allowed to continue on their earlier bail terms.
At the last adjourned date, March 13, a first prosecution witness, Timothy Olaobaju, was led in evidence by the prosecutor, Rotimi Oyedepo.
He had told the court that Belgore and Sulaiman were among the beneficiaries of the sum of $115m deposited in the account of Allison-Madueke revealing that Belgore and Sulaiman jointly received N450m on March 27, 2015.
When the trial resumed on Tuesday, the prosecution sought to tender in evidence, a document containing a comprehensive list of beneficiaries of Diezani’s funds in the 36 states of the federation.
The move by the prosecution was however opposed by Sulaiman’s counsel, Olatunji Ayanlaja (SAN), who argued that the document did not comply with the provisions of Section 84 of the Evidence Act and urged the court to reject same.
In response, the prosecution maintained that the document had substantially satisfied the conditions spelt out in Section 84 of the Evidence Act, and urged the court to admit it.
After entertaining arguments from both parties, Justice Aikawa deferred his ruling till March 23.
Meanwhile, the defence counsel commenced cross-examination of the first prosecution witness, Olaobaju.
Under cross-examination by Belgore’s lawyer, Chief Ebun Shofunde (SAN), the witness said that the N450m received by Belgore and Sulaiman was brought in a bullion van from the CBN but said he couldn’t remember the denomination of the currencies.
He said that the money was offloaded from the bullion van into the bank’s loading bay where it was manually counted saying that as a professional banker “I can count N1bn in 20 minutes.”
The witness said that although the bank was ready to deliver the money to Belgore and Sulaiman on March 26, 2015, when it arrived from the CBN but the process was delayed by the failure of Sulaiman to release his Identification Card.
He added that the transaction was captured on the CCTV camera mounted in the bank.
NAN reports that the court will again resume proceedings on March 23.
