Armsgate: Court orders Metuh to open defence on Monday

AFTER a marathon court session that gave rise to four preliminary rulings, a Fed­eral High Court Judge, Jus­tice Okon Abang yesterday ordered the National Public­ity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olisa Metuh to open his defence in the money launder­ing charges against him on Monday, April 11, 2016.

This was after Justice Abang had dismissed Metuh’s application asking him to dis­qualify himself from further presiding over the case on the ground that it was base­less and lacked merit.

The Chief Judge of the Fed­eral High Court, Justice Ibra­him Auta, had also through a letter dated March 24, 2016 dismissed Metuh’s petition saying he was satisfied with Justice Abang reply to the pe­tition.

The Economic and Finan­cial Crimes Commission is prosecuting Metuh and his firm before Justice Abang on a-seven count charge of mon­ey laundering, including $2m cash transaction.

Part of the charges preferred against them also bordered on the N400 million which the accused allegedly received fraudulently from the Office of the National Security Ad­viser in November 2014.

However, after the prosecu­tion counsel, Slyvanus Tahir had closed his case by call­ing eight witnesses, Metuh’s counsel, Chief Emeka Etia­ba (SAN) sent the petition against the judge and filed the application asking him to withdraw from the case after the prosecution closed its case with eight witness and they were called upon to open their defence.

Both the petition and the motion were based on allega­tion of bias levelled against the judge.

Ruling on the application Friday, Justice Abang ruled that the allegation of bias against him was baseless.

“It is my considered view that the application lacks merit and it is hereby dismissed,” the judge ruled.

The application by Metuh, through his lawyer, Mr. Eme­ka Etiaba (SAN), asking the judge to disqualify himself was based on the allegation that the judge had been bias in the handling of the case.

The same allegation was part of the grounds in an earli­er petition by Metuh’s lawyer asking the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Auta, to withdraw the case from Justice Abang and reas­sign it to another judge.

Share on Google Plus

About The Nigerian Blogger

This is a short description in the author block about the author. You edit it by entering text in the "Biographical Info" field in the user admin panel.