By Miriam Humbe
The 1st Prosecution Witness PW1 in the trial within trial of former Minister of Power, Saleh Mamman told a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja and presided over by Justice James Omotosho that the former Minister made confessional statements at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC’s office voluntarily by authorizing his lawyer to write the statement on his behalf.
Dele Oyewale, EFCC’s Head of Media and Publicity disclosed this in a statement signed on Tuesday.
Mamman is facing trial in relation to the Mambilla Power Project on a 12-count charge, bordering on conspiracy to commit money laundering to the tune of N33,804,830,503.73 (Thirty-Three Billion, Eight Hundred and Four Million, Eight Hundred and Thirty Thousand, Five Hundred and Three Naira, Seventy-three Kobo).
The witness, Abubakar Kwaido, an investigator with the EFCC, while being led in evidence by prosecution counsel, Rotimi Oyedepo, SAN, objected to the allegation that the statement by the defendant was a product of threats and not voluntary, stating that the process was audio-visually recorded as the office where the statement was taken is a general office where different parties come in and go out, adding that Mamman said he wanted to dictate while his lawyer wrote because he was not feeling well.
The authorization form which carries the defendant’s signature read:
“I Saleh Mamman has authorized my lawyer Mohammed Ahmed of Pineal solicitors to write on my behalf due to ill health and other health challenges, in support of this I have submitted a medical report to that effect”.
Continuing, Kwaido narrated that “the defendant was supposed to report back to our office two weeks after the initial interrogation but he absconded for about six months.
“We were calling and sending him messages to report to our office for further statements and he wrote to us through his lawyers for a reprieve of few days to report, suggesting 14 and 20 February 2024 and he chose to come on the 20 and when he came, we interviewed him and his lawyer was smiling all through and nobody threatened him.
“There were surprised to hear that he was threatened. We have been communicating with him, he mentioned his business partners which we asked him to contact them and there are other documents we asked him to come with but he said we should give him two weeks and he did not come back” he said.
The audio visual recording of the confessional statements was taken in Court through the screen.
The matter was adjourned to April 10, 2025 for continuation of trial within trial.
At the last adjournment, defence counsel, Femi Atteh accused the prosecution of not providing a visual and audio recording of the confessional statements of the defendant.
