Justice Gabriel Kolawole of the Federal High Court, Abuja on July 3, 2017
overruled objections by Osarenkhoe Afe, to the admissibility of his statements
made to the EFCC, and admitted them in evidence as Exhibits 1 and 1a.
Afe, managing director of Federick Hamilton Global Services
Limited is standing trial along with Stephen Oronsaye, a former Head of Service
to the Federation, for a N2billion fraud case. They are facing an amended 35-count
charge bordering on “stealing and obtaining money by false pretence”.
Afe had through his counsel, Oluwole Aladedoye, objected to
the admissibility of the statements, arguing that they were obtained from his
client through “oppression”, thus necessitating the commencement of a
trial-within-trial.
In proving its case that the statements were made
voluntarily by Afe, the prosecution led by O.A. Atolagbe, called three
witnesses – operatives on the EFCC’s Pension Task Force, who testified that the
statements were made by him, and that “he was not coerced” into making them.
The ruling, which lasted about an hour, brings to an end the
trial-within-trial, which began on June 21, 2016. The trial judge gave the
verdict in his ruling “after consciously and deliberately weighing the evidence
presented to the court by the prosecution and defence”.
The statements are confessional ones made by Afe to the EFCC
on February 24, 2011 and March 16, 2011 in the course of investigating five
companies – Hamilton Global Services Limited; Cluster Logistic Limited; Kangolo
Dynamic Cleaning Limited, and Drew Investment & Construction Company
Limited – alleged to have been used to perpetrate the fraud.
“The second defendant was in a good state of mind, when he
made the statements,” the judge held, noting that if indeed, he was coerced
into making the statements as claimed; he never took any steps, like writing “a
letter of protest” and asking “the court to order the EFCC to produce the
statement he was coerced to write”.
The trial judge further held that “if in the course of
proceedings, there are new developments, which put the statement in great
doubt; this court has the power to expunge it, as it is easier to do that, and
I don’t have power to remove evidence that has already been objected”.
Justice Kolawole, thereafter, admitted the statements
exhibits in the criminal trial, and adjourned to October 12, 2017 for
“continuation of judicial trial of the defendants”.
Earlier in the proceedings, the trial judge granted a motion
brought by Oronsaye’s counsel, Barth Ogar, asking the court to release his
client’s international passport, in order for him to travel abroad for
medicals.
The trial judge ruled that: “Ogar must in the next 48 hours
file a personal undertaking that the defendant shall return his passport on or
before September 30 for purposes of his further trial.”
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