BREAKING NEWS, Politics
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A FEDERAL High Court in Abuja on Tuesday, January 5, ordered that Haliru Mohammed Bello, former national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, be restricted to the Abuja Clinics, where he is on admission.
The court also ordered Abba Mohammed Bello, his son, to be remanded in Kuje prison, Abuja.
Justice Ahmed Ramat Mohammed, who listened to lawyers to Mohammed and his son argue their bail applications, shortly after they were arraigned on a four-count charge of money laundering, deferred judgment to Thursday, January 7.
The judge also directed that his order that Bello be restricted to the hospital be brought to the notice of the inspector general of Police, IGP, by the court’s registrar, for enforcement.
The court orders would subsist until Thursday when the judge would rule on the bail applications.
Bello, who reportedly took ill shortly after the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, filed the charge against him, his son and Bam Projects and Properties Limited, their company, was brought to court in a wheel chair. He was assisted by two medical personnel provided by the hospital.
The former defence minister, dressed in a dark-blue embroidered kaftan, was brought to the court a few minutes after 10 am. His son, dressed in a sky-blue kaftan, was brought in by security agents about 30 munities later.
Bello, his son and BAM are accused of receiving N300m from the Office of the National Security Adviser, ONSA, on March 17, 2015 for political campaign under pretext that it was meant for a housing project named “Safe Houses”.
The first count states that the N300m collected by the defendants was part of proceeds of Sambo Dasuki, a retired colonel and former national security adviser’s “unlawful activity”.
They were alleged to have concealed the money in their Sterling Bank Plc account when they “knew the said Doctor Aliru Bello and Col. Mohammed Sambo Dasuki (retd.) to be engaged in a criminal conduct.”
They were also accused of conspiring to “launder” the money, which they claimed to have received for political campaign when they “reasonably ought to have known that the said fund formed part of the proceeds of an unlawful activity of Col. Mohammed Sambo Dasuki, the then National Security Adviser.”
— Jan 6, 2016 @ 13:50 GMT
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