By Caleb Ayansina
ABUJA – Justice Ishaq Bello of the Federal Capital Territory High Court has granted leave to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to arraign for trial Aminu Abubakar, Chairman, Goodluck Support Group and Okechukwu Geoffrey for extortion and blackmail.
The accused persons who were earlier granted bail in the sum of N15million and two sureties in like sum, were alleged to have been in possession of some documents relating to some officials of the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources, with the intent to implicate them by publishing and threatening them, if they do not part with the sum of N50million.
At the last adjourned hearing on an application filed by the counsel to the accused persons, contesting the jurisdiction of the court to entertain the suit, the trial judge in his ruling averred that through out the submission of the defense counsel, there was no basis for the charges to be quashed as the prosecution diligently linked them to the offenses committed.
ICPC prosecuting counsel George Lawal in his submission argued that, for the application seeking to quash charges to be considered, the suspects must have been linked with the alleged offences.
“The charge clearly shows where the first accussed had a meeting with the officials of the petroleum ministry, where he demanded for the sum of N50million and even went ahead with threats, and even went into a meeting where he collected the sum of N5million, even writing an undertaking”, therefore, the issue of quashing the charge was not acceptable.
Having listened to the various submissions, Justice Bello adjourned the matter to October 21, 2015 for trial.
The accused persons are to appear before the court on a 3 count charge under the penal code, for extortion and conspiracy to extort on the next adjourned date.
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