Court fixes June 9 for ruling on admissibility of evidence in ex-SGF’s trial for alleged N544m scam

The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court on Wednesday fixed June 9 for ruling on the admissibility of evidence filed against a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, and five others.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arraigned the ex-SGF alongside his younger brother, Hamidu, who is a director of Rholavision Engineering Limited for an alleged N544 million grass-cutting contract scam.

Other defendants are one Suleiman Abubakar, the Managing Director of Josmon Technologies Limited, Apeh Monday, Rholavision Engineering Limited and Josmon Technologies Limited.

Justice Charles Agbaza adjourned the matter for ruling due to an argument by the defence counsels on the admissibility of documents tendered by the EFCC witness, Fatima Umar.

Umar, who is a Deputy Head of Digital Forensic Laboratory with the EFCC, was led in evidence by the prosecution counsel, Offen Uket.

She said part of her job function was to identify, observe, collect and analyse data based on proven technical methodology.

READ ALSO: Ex-SGF Babachir Lawal, others re-arraigned over N544m grass cutting scandal

Umar added that she also served as an expert witness who gave data generated through automated processes to investigators to aid their work.

Lawal counsel, Akin Olujimi (SAN), told the court that he was not objecting to the admissibility of the request letter dated March 8, 2018.

Olujimi however, urged the court to reject the remaining three documents tendered by the witness.

He said the witness extracted the information from the phone which meant the extracted information was not the original source but the phone which was not before the court.

He urged the court to reject the documents tendered by the prosecution as evidence.

The other defence counsels aligned themselves to Olujimi’s submission and adopted it as their arguments.

The judge, thereafter adjourned the matter till June 9 for ruling on the admissibility of the documents.

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