The National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Olisa Metuh was absent Monday at the scheduled resumption of his trial before the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory.
Although Metuh and his lawyer were in court at the last adjourned date of March 16 when parties agreed to Monday owning to the judge’s absence, Metuh and his legal team refused to turn up.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on January 21 this year, arraigned Metuh on two-count charges of attempting to destroy evidence to be used for his trial in the allegation of receiving N400 million from the former National Security Adviser (NSA), retired Col. Sambo Dasuki for which he has already been arraigned in another court.
The EFCC stated in the charge that Metuh ‘tore into pieces statement made under caution’ contrary to section 326 of the penal code and punishable under Section 327 of the same code.
The prosecution later amended the charge and added a third count of “Mischief”, which contravened Section 326 punishable under Section 327 of the Penal Code.
Monday, it was only the prosecution lawyer, Sylvanus Tahir and his witness (the first prosecution witness, Said Junaid) who were in court.
They were later informed by court’s official, having waited for over one hour that the trial judge, Justice Ishaq Bello, was not available.
Attempts by officials of the court to contact members of the defence team failed. An official of the court, who said he attempted to reach Emeka Etiaba (SAN), explained that calls to his number were not successful.
Having failed to establish contact with the defence team, the court’s officials later adjourned further proceedings to May 9.
On February 24, Junaid, while testifying as the first prosecution witness, gave details how Metuh allegedly tore the statement.
Led in evidence by Tahir, the witness said his team visited Metuh’s residence at Prince and Princess Estate, Abuja on January 5, 2016 and invited him to the Commission.
Metuh, according to the prosecution witness, honoured the invitation and was interrogated by Ibrahim Musa, Micheal Wetkas, Bello Umar, David Nkpe, Bello Adama and Eucheria Ibrahim adding that the PDP spokesperson volunteered a statement to the commission.
“My Lord, when he concluded writing his statement which was on four sheets of the EFCC statement form, I collected the statement and read over it. I then handed it over to my superiors Musa and Wektas. My lord, he suddenly tore the statement sheet into pieces, in great shock and surprise I stood up and I asked him why he did what he did.
“He said he did that because he was no longer willing to give the information on that statement sheet. I then requested the pieces of the statement, he declined and attempted to put them in his pocket, I then cautioned him and told him to respect himself, he insisted that he was going to dispose the torn sheet.
“I persuaded him to handover the torn sheet and brought one plain paper before him, he poured the pieces on the plain sheet, my other colleagues were there looking at us in surprise as well.
“He furthered tore them into pieces, saying only in the movies would this be recovered. I poured the pieces in the commission’s transparent polythene bag for exhibit and made entry of the incident into the EFCC’s incident duty station diary as well as EFCC’s pocket notebook.
“Later, in the day he requested to make additional statement, which he made, wrote his name and signed but declined to make any other statement on the torn paper,’’ Junaid said.
The Nations
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