Abuja High Court of the Federal Capital Territory in Jabi, Abuja, on Wednesday granted a request by the office of the Attorney General of the Federation to produce the Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court, Mr. Ahmed Saleh, and two other officials of the apex for arraignment on nine counts, including diversion of N2.2bn belonging to the court.The Federal Government on November 3, 2016 charged Saleh alongside Muhammed Abdulrahman Sharif and Rilwanu Lawal, with the offences of receiving gratifications totalling N74.4m from private contractors providing services to the Supreme Court between 2009 and 2016.The case was scheduled for the arraignment of the accused persons before Justice A.B. Mohammed on Wednesday.But neither the accused persons nor their lawyers were present in court.It was learnt that the defendants had yet to be served with the charges as ofWednesday morning.This prompted the prosecuting counsel, Mrs. Hajara Yusuf, to ask for an adjournment to enable the prosecution to produce them in court.She said, “We were made to understand that the matter was assigned to this court just yesterday morning.“We will be asking for an adjournment to enable us to produce the defendants in court.”The judge in granting Yusuf’s request then fixed November 17 for the arraignment of the accused.When the date of their arraignment is fixed, the accused will be facing nine counts of conspiracy, criminal breach of trust by allegedly diverting the sum of N2.2bn belonging to the apex court and receiving gratification as public officers.The case bears the suit number FCT/HC/CR/13/2016.The allegations leading to the filing of the charges on Thursday are believed to have been unearthed by the recent raid by the operatives of the Department of State Services on the homes of some judges, including two of them belonging to the Supreme Court bench, and some offices at the apex court complex.The Supreme Court employees allegedly diverted the sum of N2.2bn belonging to the apex court and received the N74.4m gratification between 2009 and 206.The contractors from whom they allegedly received the gratification are Willysdave Ltd., Welcon Nig. Ltd., Dean Musa Nig. Ltd., Ababia Ventures Ltd.and MBR Computers Ltd.The three Supreme Court employees named in the first charge are accusedof conspiracy and criminal breach of trust contrary to section 315 of the Penal Code Act and punishable under the same section, by diverting the sum of N2.2bn belonging to the Supreme Court.The accused persons allegedly deposited same into personal account 2027642863 domiciled in United Bank for Africa Plc.
Source: PUNCH newspaper