An Italian Appeals Court has upheld an eight-month prison sentence for two Milan prosecutors, Fabio De Pasquale and Sergio Spadaro, for failing to file documents that would have supported energy group, Eni’s position in an international corruption case.
Judges in the northern city of Brescia on Thursday upheld the verdict handed down last year, which ruled that prosecutors, De Pasquale and Spadaro, failed in their legal obligation to file documents that could have helped the defence.
Before the verdict, Spadaro read a lengthy statement to the court in which he said “there was no refusal, there was no omission,” and that the prosecutors had acted “according to conscience and law.”
Their lawyer, Massimo Dinoia, however, said they would appeal to the Court of Cassation, Italy’s top court. The Milan court that acquitted the defendants in the Eni and Shell trial said the prosecutors had failed to file among the trial documents a video shot by a former external lawyer for Eni, which the court said was relevant to the case.
De Pasquale and Spadaro were in October last year sentenced to eight months in prison for hiding vital evidence in the trial of Shell and Eni over the OPL 245 affair
The case was another episode in the OPL 245 saga, which the Italian prosecutors lost in the Court of Milan, after failing to provide evidence of fraud in the sale of the oil block to Shell and Eni by Malabu Oil and Gas Limited, a Nigerian company, in 2011.
All the cases alleging fraud in the OPL 245 transaction failed in Italy, the UK and in Nigeria. In March 2021, all the defendants were nevertheless acquitted in what was described by activists as the industry’s biggest corruption case involving the $1.3 billion acquisition of a Nigerian oilfield a decade ago.
The Brescia court, chaired by Roberto Spanò, ruled that De Pascale and Spadaro as state attorneys had a legal obligation to present all documents during the trial in Italy.
These documents include those that could have helped the case of the defence. The judges ruled that the prosecutors had infringed the rights of the defendants by failing to provide them. Their lawyer had asked the magistrates to acquit them on the ground that they were not under obligation to present the documents to the Milan court.
De Pasquale was demoted in May 2024 by the country’s Superior Council of the Judiciary (CSM) for “lack of impartiality and fairness” in the way he handled the prosecution.
He had also hidden evidence that showed that the property purportedly linked to the former Nigerian Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Mohammed Bello Adoke, when the OPL 245 resolution agreement was signed, as bribe from the OPL 245 in fact belonged to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
In May 2018, when the Milan trial was on, Adoke alleged that the Italian prosecutors had hidden vital evidence from the court which would have exonerated him of alleged bribery in the transaction.
In June 2021, he also wrote a petition to the Italian Minister of Justice to complain about the prosecutors Adoke alleged that they deliberately concealed his failed N300 million mortgage transaction with Unity Bank from the Milan court just to create the impression that it was a bribe. He also alleged that an email purportedly sent by him from the account of a property company mentioned in the OPL 245 payments was forged.
Adoke further alleged that a phone conversation was stage-managed to implicate him.
In a charge filed against the former AGF before Justice Abubakar Kutigi of the Federal Capital Territory High Court, the court had dismissed the charges of fraud, bribery and conspiracy filed against Adoke by the EFCC.
Also discharged and acquitted by the court alongside Adoke were a businessman, Aliyu Abubakar; Rasky Gbinigie, Malabu Oil & Gas Ltd’s company secretary; Malabu Oil & Gas Ltd; Nigeria Agip Exploration (NAE); Shell Ultra Deep Nigeria (SNUD) Ltd; and Shell Nigeria Exploration Production Company (SNEPCO) Ltd.
The court reprimanded the anti-graft agency for filing “frivolous” charges against the former AGF.
