Crime
Kenny Martin’s N7.74bn alleged fraud case gets rescheduled
The trial of Kenny Martins who is being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for alleged N7.74bn Police Equipment Fund fraud may have to be rescheduled from Tuesday (today) to another date.
EFCC’s Acting Head, Media and Publicity, Mr Tony Orilade, stated this in a statement on Monday.
Justice Modupe Adebiyi of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, had scheduled Tuesday for trial in the case.
But the scheduled proceedings are no longer feasible in the light of the shutdown of courts by the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Tanko Muhammad, following the lockdown in force in Abuja and many other parts of the country to curb the spread of COVID-19 pandemic.
A fresh date for the trial may be given after the lockdown.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is prosecuting Martins, as the coordinator of the Police Equipment Fund, for allegedly conniving with three others to perpetrate the alleged fraud.
Justice Mohammed Talba, then of FCT High Court, Gudu, Abuja, now elevated to the Court of Appeal bench, had on November 24, 2009, discharged Martins and his co-defendants- Ibrahim Dumuje, Joni Icheka and Cosmas Okpara – in his judgment on the no-case submission filed by the defendants.
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The EFCC appealed against the judgment.
The Court of Appeal in Abuja on June 28, 2012, upheld EFCC’s appeal, with the court in its lead judgment read by Justice Regina Nwodo holding that Justice Talba of the FCT High Court erred by discharging the defendants.
The court ordered the Chief Judge of the FCT High Court to reassign the case to another judge for re-trial.
Following the defendants’ appeal to the Supreme Court, the apex court in its judgment on March 23, 2018, affirmed the Court of Appeal’s verdict and ordered the retrial in the case.
The EFCC subsequently amended the charges and arraigned them before Justice Adebiyi on January 15, 2020, for their various alleged roles in forging Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) documents to facilitate the PEF fraud among other allegations.
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