Federal prosecutors are working around the clock to conclude arrangement for the arraignment next week of judges arrested by the Department of State Services (DSS), sources said yesterday.
This was contrary to earlier reports that the arrested judges were to be arraigned this week. The affected judges are Justices Sylvester Ngwuta and John Okoro; (both serving justices of the Supreme Court), Justice Adeniyi Ademola of the Federal High Court Abuja, Justice Nnamdi Dimgba and other judicial officers of superior Courts in Nigeria arrested 8 th October 2016 by the DSS.
Impeccable sources at the Federal Ministry of Justice informed our correspondent that some of the lawyers earlier contacted to handle the criminal prosecution of the judges were shying away from the case.
The sources disclosed that the prosecution of the judges will be coordinated by the National Prosecution Council (NPC) which was recently inaugurated by the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) Alhaji Abubakar Malami SAN and the case has been referred to one of the prosecution teams, which handles high profile corruption cases.
Meanwhile, Lagos based lawyer; Mr. Olukoya Ogungbeje has sued President Muhammadu Buhari, the NJC and the DSS asking the Court to declare the arrest of the five judges illegal, oppressive and unconstitutional.
Others joined as co-respondents in the fundamental human rights enforcement suit filed at the Federal High Court, Abuja are the Director-General of DSS, the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and the Inspector General of Police (IGP).
The suit which seeks to redress the purported wrongful arrest of the Judges is demanding N50 billion being general and exemplary damages for the wrongful arrest. No date has been fixed for the suit.
No comments:
Post a Comment