Friday, November 23, 2012

The rich are frustrating us - EFCC •Says over 200 convictions recorded in 2012


CHAIRMAN of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC), Mr Ibrahim Lamorde, has said the non-conclusion of high profile cases before the commission is due to the enormous resources at the disposal of most of the suspects.
Appearing before the Senate Committee on Narcotics. Drugs and Financial Crimes, on Thursday, the EFCC boss said the enormous resources enabled the suspects to drag their cases indefinitely and perpetually.
Lamorde said EFCC had only succeeded in forcing the affected suspects to stand trial by setting up an asset-forfeiting unit that confiscate the assets of individuals that the commission was investigating.
“This is because it is only when you deprive them of their resources that you will be able to force them to stand trial.
“Once they have access to their resources and assets, they will use them to continue to delay and drag some of these trials,” he said.
 He told the committee, chaired by Senator Victor Lar, that it was not correct to say that the charges against the suspects were not properly framed, but admitted that none of the high profile cases had been concluded.
“The truth is, no case has been concluded. I don’t think it is correct to say that the charges  are not properly framed or that the prosecution is not putting the case properly.
“Of course, the fact on ground is that no case has been concluded. In fact, it will be difficult for us to say you have concluded the case.
“We have example of a case we charged to court in 2006. For this very case, we have gone to the Supreme Court twice on just interlocutory applications.
“They will file this, the judge will overrule them, they will go to the Court of Appeal and lose but they will still go to the Supreme Court.
“When they lose at the Supreme Court, they will be asked to go to the trial judge for the case to continue. They will come with another application.
“Certainly, for lawyers among us, we know how long it takes for a trial to go to the Court of Appeal and get listed, then go to the Supreme Court to get it listed and decided upon. This is the fate of most of the cases we have in court,” he said.
According to him, this year alone the commission recorded over 200 convictions in various courts across the country but they mostly  dealt with advance fee fraud, popularly known as 419.
“The cases that most people are interested in their conclusion are those before the Supreme Court.
“Unfortunately, these are people who have the resources to drag these cases indefinitely and perpetually. That is why we have established a very strong assets forfeiture unit,” the EFCC boss said.

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