A federal high court sitting
in Lagos has dismissed the corruption charges against Chimaroke Nnamani, a
former governor of Enugu state.
The
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had accused Nnamani of
laundering N4.5 billion while in office between 1999 and 2007.
He
was to be re-arraigned before the court on Tuesday after he was first arraigned
in 2007.
During
the hearing on Tuesday, Rickey Tarfa, Nnamani’s counsel, informed the court of
an application he had filed disclosing the result of the plea agreement, which
according to him, led to the institution and determination of the charges
against the defendants in July 2015
The
lawyer said in view of the plea bargain agreement entered into by parties,
there is no longer any valid charge pending before the court as Chuka Obiozor,
the judge could not seat on an appeal of the previous one.
The
EFCC prosecutor, Kelvin Uzozie, said after looking at the affidavits filed by
the defendant, he is of the view that the entire proceedings should be expunged
to enable the prosecution file fresh charges against the defendant.
In
his ruling, Obiozor held that “in view of the plea bargain judgement of this
court delivered on the 7th of July, 2015, there is no valid charge before his
court”.
No comments:
Post a Comment