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| Ibori |
When James Onanefe Ibori was sentenced to 13 years imprisonment
(reduced to to 4 and ½ years by the presiding Judge, Nicholas Pitts) on Tuesday
April 17, 2012, many thought that was the end of it but little did they know
that like the phoenix Ibori would rise and haunt those who sent him to jail.
Well, that seems to be this case as recent revelations are making
clear.
Ibori was also expected to
undergo a confiscation trial apart from the first trial and he is expected to
lose some of his assets in the UK.
Well, the good news in Ibroi’s
camp is that he is expected to leave jail in March 2016 and then go for his
confiscation hearing but as things stand, it looks like the tide is turning in
Ibori’s favour.
What has changed, well the curious twist is that Ibori’s erstwhile
accusers have become the ones in the dock. How did this happen? Ibori’s former
lawyer, Badresh Gohil, who was also sentenced to jail has provided details
which point to the rotten underbelly of not just the British police but its
justice system which appears to have been compromised and used to railroad
Ibori to jail.
The evidence was presented
before Lord Tomlinson at the same Southwark court by Ibori’s defence lawyers
who shocked the Southwark Court, on Wednesday 10th February 2016, with their
revelations.
Ibori’s former lawyer, the Indian barrister, Badresh Gohil dropped
a bombshell that has left the British judicial system in disarray. His
allegations of professional misconduct, dishonesty, perverting the course of
justice and criminal non-disclosures as well as lying to the trial court and
Court of Appeal have left Ibori’s accusers reeling and running from the case.
A thoroughly disgusted Lord Tomlinson who has taken over the case
from Justice Pitts who is soon-to-retire, had to issue an order requiring
the Metropolitan Police and Prosecuting team to appear in court by 2pm after
they failed to appear on the morning of Wednesday February 10, 2016.
According to him, long before the Ibori confiscation trial was due
to commence, the British Government had reached an agreement with the Nigerian
government requiring the Nigerian government pay the British Department for
International Development (DFID) 25 million Pounds Sterling from monies that
will be confiscated from Ibori, before any remittance is made to Nigeria.
To prove his case, Gohil showed that the DFID is paying the
salaries of some police investigators on the Ibori case, especially Detective
Constable, John McDonald.
Gohil’s allegations has had consequences; two prosecutors, Sasha
Wass who was very active in the Ibori trial and Esther Schutzer-Weissmann have
been dismissed from the Ibori case and all the prosecution lawyers plus the
entire police officers that have represented the British Police have been
dismissed from the Ibori case and all other cases stemming from it – following
allegations of corruption against them; lies and deliberate misleading of the
court.”
With all these happening one is left to ask a simple question: why
is a multilateral agency funding a corruption trial and why would a
multilateral agency be getting such a huge chunk of funds expected to be
confiscated from a former governor of Nigeria? Another question is why should
money allegedly stolen from Nigeria end up in the UK?
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