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The third Prosecution Witness (PW3), Abdulhamid Isa Muri, in the ongoing trial-within-trial of the former Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), Ahmed Idris, on Tuesday, June 25, 2024, told Justice Halilu Yusuf of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court, Abuja, that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) did not promise Idris that he was not going to face prosecution for his N109 billion alleged loot.
Muri is a staff of the EFCC whose duties involve intelligence gathering, conducting surveillance, partaking in undercover operations, interacting with informants, and any other duty legally assigned by the Director of Investigations or Zonal Director of Kano Command.
At the resumed proceedings on Tuesday, Muri, while narrating how the defendant made his statement voluntarily, pointed out that the Commission did not make such promises to the defendant.
According to PW3, he met the first defendant through the former Kano Zonal Commander, Faruk Dogon Daji, who introduced him to the defendant and informed him that the defendant had come to submit some documents linked to the investigation.
“On the 10th of June, 2022, the first defendant went to our office and met the then zonal commander, Mr. Faruk Dogon Daji, an Assistant Commander of EFCC (ACEI), in his office. Based on this, the Zonal Commander sent for me and told me that the first defendant came to submit some documents that are linked to the investigation that was ongoing concerning him and that I should take him to my office to write about the documents,” he said.
“The first defendant, in the company of one Lawal Badamasi, followed me to my office, which is an open office where everybody can come in and go out. In the office, there is one Mubarak, a staff of the Commission, and Yusuf Baba Yusuf.
“I administered a cautionary word, I told him his rights, I wrote out the cautionary word, and he said he understood. Thereafter, he volunteered his statement, mentioning the documents one after the other and signed the documents with the date of that day.”
When confronted by the prosecution counsel, A.O. Atolagbe, with the allegation of the EFCC promising the defendant that the Commission would not prosecute him, Muri said the Commission did not make such a promise to the defendant.
“The first defendant is alleging that this statement of June 10, 2022, is a product of promise that he will not be prosecuted. What is your take?” Atolagbe asked.
“It is not true, my Lord; I am not the investigation officer, I am just directed to take his statement,” he said. According to Muri, the former AGF was not detained in the facility of the Kano Zonal Command of the Commission.
Justice Halilu Yusuf later discharged the witness after the cross-examination and adjourned the matter till October 29, 2024, for the defense of the trial-within-trial after the counsel to the first defendant cross-examined PW3.
Idris is being prosecuted by the EFCC on a 14-count bordering on money laundering to the tune of N109,485,572,691. The EFCC arraigned Idris before the Federal Capital Territory High Court on July 22, 2022.
He was arraigned alongside Godfrey Olusegun Akindele, Mohammed Kudu Usman, and Gezawa Commodity Market and Exchange Limited.
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