THE Chief Judge of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Justice Ishaq Bello, has granted permission to the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) to arraign for the Chairman, Goodluck Support Group, Aminu Abubakar and his assistant, Okechukwu Geoffrey.
The ICPC had earlier filed a three-count before the court, accusing them of conspiracy, extortion and blackmail.
They were said to possess documents relating to some officials of Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources, with the intent to implicate them by publishing and threatening them, if they did pay N50 million.
When they were first taking before the court, the duo challenged the competence of the charge and the court’s jurisdiction.
According to a statement yesterday by ICPC’s spokesman Folu Olamiti, the court granted each of the accused persons bail at N15 million and two sureties in the same amount.
It then took arguments from parties on ICPC’s application for leave to arraign them and the accused applications challenging the competence of the charge.
In a ruling last week, Justice Bello held that there was no basis for the charge to be quashed because the prosecution had diligently linked the accused to the offences committed.
The judge upheld the argument by the prosecuting lawyer, George Lawal, that the application seeking to quash charge be dismissed because the suspects have been linked with the alleged offences.
“The charge clearly shows where the first accused (Abubakar) had a meeting with the officials of the Petroleum Ministry, where he demanded N50 million, went ahead with threats, and went into a meeting where he collected N5 million, even writing an undertaking”. Therefore, the issue of quashing the charge was not acceptable,” he said.
The judge fixed October 21, for the arraignment of the accused.
They will be arraigned on the three-count charge, brought under the Penal Code, for extortion and conspiracy to extort.
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