> Kudirat's Murder: Plot to Free Al Mustapha Revealed: Former NBA President, Ibori Judge, Step In
Sunday, June 30, 2013
0
comments
Two
critical characters from the hallways and byways of injustice in
Nigeria have quietly stepped into the case of convicted Major Hamza
Al-Mustapha, the once powerful Chief Security Officer to late dictator
General Sanni Abacha.
Observers
say their task is to set Mustapha free and frustrate the course of
justice for slain democracy heroine, Kudirat Abiola.
Last
May, Justice Ibrahim Saulawa, the lead judge of the Court of Appeal in
Lagos withdrew from the appeal instituted by Al Mustapha citing personal
reasons, but sources said he was miffed by a high level of
interference in the case.
The
judge withdrew before the court registrar could announce that a former
President of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Joseph B Daudu (SAN)
was becoming the lead counsel. Sources told Saharareporters that Mr.
Daudu had quietly taken over the lucrative deal of representing
Mustapha. Next, Appeal Court judge Amina Augie, stepped in as the lead
judge in the case on June 10, she took the briefing of mr. Daudu and
reserved her ruling on the matter indefinitely.
Observers
told SaharaReporters the deadly combination of Justice Augie and JB
Daudu seems targeted at saving Mustapha's case and possibly freeing him
of culpability for the killing of several pro -democracy activists with
the aid of killer squads that were assembled and funded through his
office during the Abacha years.
Daudu is no stranger to such jobs: he was the prosecutor
handpicked by late General Abacha who served his government in the
kangaroo trial of Ken Saro-Wiwa and 8 Ogoni activists, leading to the
hanging of the activists on November 10, 1995.
Both
Daudu and Augie were also later involved in the conspiracy to free
former Delta State governor James Ibori from his first corruption trial
in Kaduna in 2008. As the lead judge in the Kaduna Division of the Court
of Appeal, it was Justice Augie who ruled that the former Delta state
governor be returned for trial in the jurisdiction where he committed
the offense of fraud, namely, his home state. That ruling paved the way
for the Delta State government and the Federal High Court to collaborate
to set up a kangaroo court headed by Justice Marcel Awokulehin. The
Federal High Court Asaba was paid for, furnished and staffed by Ibori’s
cousin, Governor Emmanuel Udughan. The court didn’t waste time in
clearing Ibori of all 170 charges of corruption filed by the Economic
and Financial Crimes Commission.
It
would be remembered that Ibori then became a free man, and was only
forced to account for his crimes after he fled to Dubai, from where he
was extradited to the United Kingdom for trial. To forestall possible
humiliation in the Court of Appeal, Justice Augie had been posted ahead
to the Benin Division to prepare to deliver Ibori before the former
governor took matters into his own hands and slipped away to Dubai.
Al
Mustapha and James Ibori served general Abacha in deadly capacities
during his terryfying reign. With Ibori reportedly involved in the
killing of Pa Alfred Rewane, the main financier of the National
Democratic Coalition (NADECO). After Al Mustapha was arrested and
detained for murder Ibori took over the upkeep of his family while he
was governor Delta State.
A
legal source in Lagos told SaharaReporters that the bizarre nature of
the current trajectory of the Mustapha case is that Mr. Daudu, when he
represented the son of the late dictator, Mohammed, in the same case
during the Olusegun Obasanjo years had pleaded before the Supreme Court
that Mustapha was the person responsible for Kudirat's death. At that
time, of course, he was serving as the counsel to Abacha's son.
After
much wheeling and dealing in that case, a five-man panel headed by
Justice Alpha Belgore ruled that the mere presence of Abacha's son at
the time that Al Mustapha handed guns for the killing of Kudirat was not
sufficient reason to find him guilty. He was set free, leaving Al
Mustapha to answer to the crimes alone.
However,
a minority ruling by Justice Akintola Olufemi Ejiwunmi described the
majority judgment by Belgore as a tyranny of the majority. It held that
Abacha son gave the killers of Kudirat Abiola $10k each to flee the
country and that he ought to be held culpable.
Also
of great importance is that Sergeant Rogers, a key character in the
killings of that era who is now paralyzed, did confess at the Oputa
panel that it was Al Mustapha who killed Kudirat.
All
of the secret maneuvers to free Al Mustapha from the hangman's noose
were kept away from the public until SaharaReporters investigations
began to yield fruit.
On
30 January 2012, Al Mustapha was sentenced to death by a Lagos High
court judge over the 1996 daylight assassination of Alhaja Kudirat
Abiola, the wife of the acclaimed winner of the June 12 1993 election.
Categories:
0 comments:
Post a Comment