Court adjourns hearing on Dasuki’s application for consolidation of charges

A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) sitting in Maitama, Abuja, has again adjourned hearing on a motion filed by former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd), asking the court to consolidate two criminal charges bordering on alleged corruption and breach of trust brought against him by the Federal Government.

At the resumed trial yesterday, absence of Akin Olujimi, counsel to the second defendant, Shuaibu Salisu, had stalled the moving of the application. Prosecution counsel, Rotimi Jacobs (SAN), had earlier informed the court that the matter for the day was the hearing on application filed by the first defendant.

Joseph B. Daudu (SAN), legal counsel to Dasuki, who is first defendant in the matter, had at the previous sitting informed the court about a fresh motion seeking to consolidate charges against him with another case before Justice Peter Affen of the same FCT High Court.

The former NSA in the motion on notice filed by his counsel claimed that the trial in two different courts on the same issues and facts is unconstitutional and prejudicial to his right to fair trial by the court.

Dasuki, who is standing trial on allegation of alleged misappropriation of $2.1billion along with four others before Justice Yusuf, had insisted that the charges against him by the complainant on the same issue constituted a gross abuse of court process.

Dasuki, who claimed that the two charges revolved around the same set of transaction and facts on the alleged funds misappropriation and the breach of trust, further said that to stand trial before two different courts and two different judges on the same set of facts and purported transaction of the office of the NSA would be prejudicial and great hardship against him as he stands the risk of double jeopardy having been charged in two different courts on the issue.

In the alternative, he prayed that his name be struck out from one of the two charges in the interest of justice.

The presiding judge, Justice Baba-Yusuf, initially stood the matter down for few minutes but later adjourned to July 11, 2016.