Justice Nnamdi Dimgba of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Tuesday, adjourned the trail of a former Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Mohammed Umar Dikko (retd) till April 28 and 29, 2021 when the defendant is expected to open his defense on one of seven counts of money laundering preferred against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
Air Marshal Dikko is being prosecuted by the EFCC on a seven count charge of money Laundering and procurement fraud to the tune of N9.7billion.
The EFCC closed its case against on November 28, 2019. But Dikko, rather than open his defence filed a no case submission through his counsel, Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN, claiming that the Commission has not proven the charges brought against him and therefore, should be let off the hook.
Prosecuting counsel, Slyvanus Tahir had opposed the submission, urging the court to throw out the defendant’s application for lacking in merit.
Ruling on the defendant’s application today, Justice Dimgba held that the prosecution failed to link the defendant to the offence in six out of the seven counts of the charge. The judge held that the prosecution acted on suspicion and assumption as it was unable to prove that properties acquired by the defendant could be gotten from the proceeds of estacodes that accrued to him as Chief of Air Staff.
He therefore discharged and acquitted the defendant on counts one to six of the charge and adjourned till April 28 and 29 for the defendant to open his defense.
