The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, says it will appeal the ruling by Justice Ahmed Mohammed of the Federal High Court, Abuja, which acquitted the money laundering charges preferred by the Commission against the former Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Andrew Yakubu.
Andrew Yakubu was arraigned by the EFCC in March 2017, following the discovery of nine point eight million dollars, stashed in his property located in the Sabon Tasha suburb of Kaduna.
Yakubu had pleaded not guilty upon arraignment.
In the course of the trial, the commission called witnesses and tendered documents in evidence, but the defendant filed a no-case submission.
Based on the submission, the court struck out two of the six counts.
Two further counts were thrown out upon appeal by the defendant, while the appellate court ordered his continued trial on the remaining two counts.
Delivering the judgment on Thursday, Justice Mohammed held that the prosecution failed to prove the ingredient of the offence beyond a reasonable doubt.
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He held that the commission ought to have investigated the defendant’s claims that the monetary gifts he claimed to have received came from his friends, and tender the recovered cash before the court.
Consequently, he discharged and acquitted the defendant.
In a statement by the spokesman of the EFCC, Wilson Uwujaren, the EFCC believes the trial judge acted in error, in dismissing the charge and has resolved to challenge the ruling at the appellate court.
(Editor: Ifeanyi Mark)
