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PDP chieftain, Metuh, to spend 7 years in prison for money laundering
A former National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Olisa Metuh has been sentenced to a total of 39 years in prison for money laundering by the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja.
Metuh’s conviction was in respect of his activities preceding the 2015 general elections, in which former President Goodluck Jonathan was the presidential candidate of the PDP.
The trial judge, Justice Okon Abang, while delivering judgment on Tuesday, convicted the former PDP spokesman on all the seven counts, including the receipt of N400m from the Office of the National Security Adviser in November 2014 and the use of the money for political activities of the PDP and for his personal purposes.
He was also convicted Metuh for transacting with a cash sum of $2m without going through a financial institution.
Read also: ALLEGED EXTORTION: Court adjourns Sani’s trial
Justice Abang, in the judgment also held that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) successfully proved that Metuh’s the transaction violated the anti-money laundering law pegging the maximum cash transaction an individual undertake outside a financial institution at N5m.
He was sentenced to seven years imprisonment each for counts 1, 2, 4 and 7, five years imprisonment in respect of count 3, and three years each in respect of counts 5 and 6.
Justice Abag however ruled that the sentences would run concurrently, while he was ordered to pay a fine of N375m to the Federal Government and his company, Destra Investments to pay N25m to the Federal Government, which was ordered wound up.
The accounts of the company with Diamond Bank and Asset Resource Management are also to be closed and their proceeds forfeited to the Federal Government.
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