The Federal High Court, FCT Division, has adjourned the trial of a former Accountant General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris after the Economic Financial Crimes Commission(EFCC) failed to provide a statement which was crucial to the case.
The EFCC had earlier re-arraigned the ex-Accountant alongside Olusegun Akindele, Mohammed Usman and Gezawa Commodity Market and Exchange Limited on October 27, 2022 for alleged misappropriation of the sum of N109 billion an offence offence which was a violation of sections 155 and 315 of the Penal Code Act Cap 532 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 1990.
At the Wednesday proceeding, the ex-AGF told the court that he made some of the statements the EFCC planned to use against him under duress.
To verify the allegation, the presiding Judge, Justice Halilu Yusuf, ordered that a trial within trial be held.
While trying to refute the allegations made by the accused, the EFCC provided its witness, Mr Hayatudeen Suleiman, who was the operative for examination on 13 different statements obtained from the accused.
The trial was, however, disrupted when EFCC could not provide one of the vital statements dated July 5 while examining its witness.
The defence counsel led by Chris Uche (SAN) also told the court that the needed document was not supplied to it by the agency and alleged that the agency suppressed some of the documents given to his team for reasons best known to it.
According to him, “We came fully prepared for this case to be substantially dealt with but unfortunately, EFCC appears to be dragging us back by not putting its house in order.”
Efforts made by the presiding Judge to salvage the situation yielded no results as the document was also missing among the documents EFCC uploaded to the court.
The EFCC lawyer applied for an adjournment to enable him find the missing statement and serve on the defendants.
His request was granted by Justice Yusuf and the case was adjourned till May 11.
Author: Stella Adeniyi
