FG hires new lawyer to prosecute Justice Ngwuta

The Federal Government through office of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice has engaged the service of Olusegun Fakunle, as the new prosecuting counsel in the trial of suspended Justice of the Supreme court, Justice Sylvester Ngwuta.

This is coming after the Federal Government decided to terminate its engagement with Charles Adeogun-Phillip, owing to his the recent stance against FG’s decision to drop the charges preferred against the Chief Registrar of the Supreme court.

At the resumption of trial before Justice John Tsoho, Fakunle sought the court for an adjournment, to enable go through the case, since sjhe was new on the after.

She told the court that for her to carry out a successful re-examination, she will require a short time to study the case file and subsequently interview the witness before taking further steps.

Kanu Agabi SAN, defence counsel did not however object to the application, upon which Justice Tsoho adjourned the matter to March 16 and 17, 2017 for continuation of trial.

He was arraigned before the trial court on a 16-count charges bordering on money laundering and professional misconduct.

He was accused of illegally retaining in his possession N35, 358, 000.00 contrary to the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act 2011 and that he reserved in his custody 280.00 r. 44, $319,596.0025 and 25,915 pounds sterling.

The prosecution also claimed that the monies were part of the proceeds of unlawful act contrary to the Money Laundering Act. It went further to allege that four diplomatic passports, one official and two standard Nigerian passports all having the name of the defendant on them, were found during DSS search of his home on October 7 and 8, 2016.