The Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal has reserved judgment in the appeal filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) seeking to nullify the judgment of the High Court stopping the prosecution of the Chief Executive Officer and founder of the Aiteo Group, Mr Benedict Peters.
Other appellants in the appeal No: CA/CV/71/2022 are the British National Crime Agency (NCA) and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), while the respondents are Benedict Peters, Colinwood Ltd and Rosewood Investment.
A panel of the appellate court presided over by Justice Oye Oyewumi, with Justice Okon Abang, reserved judgment after counsel adopted their briefs of argument for and against the appeal.
The appeal is against the judgment of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), which quashed all allegations bordering on corruption, bribery and money laundering brought against the Aiteo boss and international billionaire businessman, Benedict Peters, by the British and Nigerian agencies, arising from his ownership of a number of properties.
Justice Olukayode Adeniyi held that the EFCC founded its case mainly on an undated and unsigned document that bore no name of its alleged maker, titled “Highly Confidential Attorney Work”, allegedly issued by one Donald Chidi Amangbo.
The court consequently awarded the sum of N200m damages jointly and severally against the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, SAN, and five others, in favour of Mr Benedict Peters and the three companies.
The court held: “It is hereby declared that the defendants, by fraudulent design, suppressed and misrepresented facts in supposition that the claimants’ properties, legitimately acquired, belonged to Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, former Minister of Petroleum in Nigeria, and/or were unlawfully acquired, a fact they knew or ought to know was false, incorrect and baseless, constituting the tort of carousel fraud.”
The suit marked FCT/HC/CV/0536/17 was filed on behalf of the plaintiffs by Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, Chief Emeka Ozoani, SAN, Chief Andrew Oru, Chief Nobis Elendu, and a crack team of other lawyers, on 11 May 2017, with an amended statement of claim filed on 31 January 2019.
Suleiman Jibrin represented the EFCC and six others, while Farouk Abdullah led others to represent the AGF.
The court, in awarding the sum of N200m damages against the defendants in the tort of carousel fraud, as argued by Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, strongly condemned the action of the defendants, which, by “fraudulent design, suppressed and misrepresented facts in supposition that the claimants’ properties legitimately acquired belonged to Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, former Minister of Petroleum Resources.”
It condemned the “deceitful sham allegations by the defendants” and held that “the unlawful means of conspiracy of the defendants was to extract, by intimidation and coercion, the assets, properties and monies to which the claimants are legitimately entitled.”
The claimants had in the suit claimed against the defendants the sum of $5bn USD (equivalent of N1.5 trillion at the then exchange rate of 315 to one US dollar) for the tort of carousel fraud. In the judgment, the court deprecated the defendants’ actions in fraudulently misrepresenting facts in support of their false claims that the properties belonging to the plaintiffs (Benedict Peters, Colinwood Ltd, Rosewood Investments Ltd and Walworth Properties Ltd), which had been legitimately acquired, belonged to Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, and were thus allegedly unlawfully acquired.
The properties which belong to the plaintiffs but were falsely and wrongfully alleged to belong to Diezani Alison-Madueke were: “270-17 Street, Unit #4204, Atlanta, Georgia; Flat 5 Parkview, 83-86 Prince Albert Road, St John’s Wood, London; Flat 58 Harley House, Marylebone, London; and Apartments 4 & 5, Arlington Road, London.”
