FG drops charges against Mohammed Abacha
Justice Mamman Kolo sitting at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court, yesterday struck out all criminal charges leveled against Mohammed Sani Abacha, the eldest surviving son of the late Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha.
The trial judge handed down the order after the Federal Government yesterday dropped criminal charges filed against him over monies allegedly looted from the federal treasury during the Abacha regime.
At the resumed hearing yesterday, Abacha was represented by Abdulahi Haruna and Rueben Atabo while Daniel Enwelum appeared for the prosecution.
The prosecutor informed the court that the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Mr. Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN) had on June 17 filed a notice to discontinue all charges against Abacha which Abaca’s lawyers said they were not opposing.
In the notice, the AGF who is the chief law officer of the federation asked the FCT High Court to strike out all the charges “because there are fresh facts and documents available to the Federal Goverment”.
This was not the first time criminal charges were struck out against Abacha. In the initial charges over a decade ago, Mohammed was alleged to have received about N446.3 billion allegedly stolen from the treasury between 1995 and 1998.
In a fresh charge of nine counts against him by the AGF, Mohammed was accused of “dishonestly receiving stolen property” and “voluntarily assisted in concealing money.”
He appealed to the Court of Appeal and lost before he appealed further to the Supreme Court that ordered him to go and stand trial at the FCT High Court.
Consequently, his case file was sent back to the trial court, where the former charges were withdrawn and fresh charges slammed against him. On two occasions he could not stand trial due to ill health.
Mohammed Sani Abacha has continued to maintain that all the Abacha family assets were legitimately acquired.
After Gen. Sani Abacha’s death, the Obasanjo government implicated Abacha and his family in a wholesale looting of Nigeria’s coffers.
About $4 billion USD in foreign assets have been traced to Abacha, his family and their representatives, $2.1 billion of which the Nigerian government tentatively came to an agreement with the Abacha family to return.
Nigeria has embarked on an international campaign to press Liechtenstein into returning $185 million (N38.85 billion) of ill-gotten gains linked to the late military Head of State, General Sani Abacha which is still being held in the tiny principality nearly 16 years after recovery proceedings began.