The Supreme Court will on December 13, 2013, deliver judgment in an appeal filed by a chief of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Olabode George, to set aside his conviction by a Lagos State High Court in 2009.
A panel of the apex court set the date on Thursday after hearing the appeal, in which George and five others asked it to set aside their conviction and the sentence of two years imprisonment imposed on them by the Lagos State High Court.
George, the Chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority between 2001 and 2003, was tried and convicted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission alongside former directors of the NPA -Alhaji Aminu Dabo, Captain Oluwasegun Abidoye, Alhaji Abdulahi Tafida, Alhaji Zanna Maidaribe and Mr. Sule Aliyu- for corruption, inflation of contracts and contracts splitting.
The Lagos Division of the Court of Appeal affirmed the conviction and sentence, ruling that George and the others were properly charged and convicted under the relevant laws of Lagos State.
However, even though they have already served the sentence imposed on them by the court, George and the others have approached the Supreme Court with an appeal, seeking to upturn their conviction.
At the hearing in the appeal on Thursday, counsel for George and the other appellants, Kanu Agabi, SAN, and Joseph Daudu, SAN, insisted that their clients were wrongfully convicted and sentenced.
They argued that the Lagos State High Court lacked the jurisdiction to try their clients.
According to them, their clients should have been tried by a Federal High Court, instead of the Lagos High Court.
Punch
No comments:
Post a Comment