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Ex-NIMASA boss says EFCC induced him to confess to N304m fraud

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A former acting Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Haruna Jauro, on Monday denied the confessional statement he made to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Jauro, who is facing trial over alleged N304.1million fraud before the Federal High Court in Lagos told the court that the statement he made to the EFCC was involuntary and was in consequence of inducement.

He is standing trial along with Dr. Dauda Bawa and Thlumbau Enterprises Limited.

The defendants were arraigned on April 12, 2016 on 19 counts and they pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The trial judge, Justice Olatoregun had sequel to the defendant’s claim, when the matter came up in court on Monday, adjourned till February 21, 2017 for commencement of trial-within-trial, to test the voluntariness of the confessional statements.

The EFCC had during the trial of the defendant on Monday tendered five confessional statements it said Jauro voluntarily made while being interrogated.

The fourth witness for the EFCC, Orji Chukwuma, an investigator with the commission who continued his evidence-in-chief, explained to the court how his team, during investigation, discovered that Thlumbau Enterprises Limited was owned by Bawa, and how a Zenith Bank account, numbered 1013670068, was opened in the name of the company “purely to warehouse proceeds of crime from NIMASA.”

He told the court that “there is a report with pictorial diagrams, table and pie charts, showing clearly what the account was for.”

The witness gave an instance of how, following an internal memo in NIMASA dated July 8, 2014, requesting N20m for immediate intelligence gathering activities, N20million was transferred from the account of NIMASA’s Committee on Intelligence Gathering into the account of Thlumbau Enterprises Limited.

Chukwuma disclosed that rather than use the N20million for intelligence gathering purpose, the money was instead “co-mingled with other proceeds of crime from NIMASA,” and used to purchase a duplex in Abuja for Jauro.

Read also: JOIN THE SURVEY: Out of UK prison, should Ibori face another trial for alleged looting of Delta State?

According to the witness, Jauro had earlier made a refund of N35million to the Federal Government when challenged with the facts. “Sir, apart from this N35million, there are also other funds in that account, which are also proceeds of crime,’ and he came with his lawyer, a northerner, Galadima, and there and then, he made a statement to us,” Chukwuma added.

Two confessional statements of Bawa dated March 18, 2016 and April 1, 2016 were tendered in evidence by the EFCC and marked as exhibits by the court.

While the defence counsel, Mr. Olalekan Ojo, did not raise any objection to Bawa’s statement, he however opposed the tendering of five confessional statements dated October 12, 2015, January 28, 2016, March16, 2016, March 17, 2016 and March 24, 2016 made by Jauro to the EFCC.

He said, “We object the admissibility of all the statements of the first defendant on the grounds of the statements not being given voluntarily and in consequence of inducement by the operatives of the EFCC.

“We urge Your Lordship to conduct a trial-within-trial with regard to the admissibility of the statements of the first defendant”, he pleaded.

 

 

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