By Daniel Tyokua
A prosecution witness in the on-going trial of former Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Mr Mohammed Adoke (SAN) and a businessman, Aliyu Abubakar told a Federal High Court in Abuja of the source of the money he handed over to Abubakar, who is the second defendant in the matter.
Adoke and his co-defendant were arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on a 14-count charge, bordering on money laundering.
When the matter came up on Friday, the witness, Mr A. Mustapha, who is the 5th so far called by the prosecution told the court that the source of the $9.084, 700 million handed over to Abubakar, was from the sale of the property to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The witness, who acted as an agent of Abubakar, narrated how he collected the money and handed it over to the second defendant.
Led in evidence by the counsel to the EFCC, Bala Sanga, the witness said he acted as agent to Abubakar, who engages in buying and selling of property.
According to him, he prepared documents for the sale of the property during the transaction.
”I collected the money and handed it over to the second defendant,” he said and added that he was invited by the EFCC to give details of what he knew about the transaction about three times over a period of two years.
”The second defendant has been my client for over seven years and I also represent his company, Equal Asset Limited. ”After the money was handed over, a receipt was issued by the defendant stating that he received the said amount.”
According to him, the money was paid to the defendant at different times and explained that $2 million, $3 million, $4 million and $24,000 were given to Abubakar at different times and receipts were issued.
The 4th prosecution witness, Farouk Suleiman, a Bureau de Change (BDC) operator, gave details of how he received N2 billion from Abubakar and converted some to dollars for him.
