HOW /WHY AL MUSTAPHA WAS DISCHARGED AND ACQUAINTED The judgment of the appellate court came about 14 years after the appellants were first arraigned in 1999, with two others, for the murder of Kudurat, wife of the winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, Chief MKO Abiola. In the two separate but unanimous judgments delivered on Friday, the Justice Amina Augie-led appeal panel discharged and acquitted al-Mustapha and Shofolahan of the murder charges for lack of evidence. Lack of evidence was the same reason the Supreme Court discharged and acquitted son of the late Head of State, Mohammed Abacha, from the same case on July 11, 2002. The fourth person, Rabo Lawal, who was, during Abacha’s regime, the head of Mobile Police Force Unit in Aso Rock, was also discharged and acquitted from the case on July 14, 2011, by Justice Dada in her ruling on a no-case submission, which he (Lawal) filed after the prosecution closed its case. The all-female appeal panel held that both the charges of murder and conspiracy to murder preferred against the two men by the Lagos State Government were unsubstantiated. The two other justices on the panel were Rita Pemu, who read the lead judgment, and Fatima Augie. Pemu described the lower court’s judgment as “worrisome,” adding that it was based on principles strange to the nation’s criminal justice system. “The evidence of the prosecution was so unreliable that no responsible court will base the conviction of an accused person on,” she said. She held that the two star witnesses of the prosecution (PW2 -Barnabas Jabila aka Sgt. Rogers and PW3, Mohammed Abdul aka Katako), having recanted their incriminating testimonies, the evidence given by them could no longer be relied upon. “I wonder why the learned trial judge did not expunge the testimonies of PW2 and PW3,” Pemu said. She said despite the evidence given by Jabila and Abdul, testifying that they were instructed to tell lies against the appellants, “the learned trial judge refused to concern her mind with the politics of the case. She allowed herself to be caught in the web of the conflict.” Augie said in her supporting judgment, “The 326 pages cannot provide judgment where there is none.” She said the judgment ought not to be too long “if the case of the prosecution was strong.” According to Augie, the judgment being too long, the learned trial judge “strayed” into emotion and left the content of the matter while dwelling on the “shallow issues.” She also wondered why the authorities “refused to prosecute Barnabas Jabila, who made a confession to have killed a person.” On the testimony of the first prosecution witness, Dr. Ore Falomo, who was MKO Abiola’s personal physician, Pemu said the evidence given by him was immaterial, having only alleged that the bullet extracted from the head of the deceased was “uncommon one,” without any further proof. Pemu said the bullet was never brought to court and that no ballistician report was tendered to corroborate Falomo’s claim that the bullet must have come from the Presidency and that Kudirat must have been killed by “a fifth columnist in government.” “These questions are left unanswered by the prosecution,” Pemu said. She said the incomplete testimony of the fourth prosecution witness (PW4), Ahmed Fari Yusuf, a retired Commissioner of Police, “goes to no issue” and as such, all the statements credited to the appellants, which were tendered through him, were all immaterial. She said failure of the prosecution to present Yusuf for the defence to cross-examine after two trials-within-trial for 13 months to test the voluntariness of the statements “was an infraction to the rights of the appellants to fair hearing.” As such, the court held that the three statements tendered as Exhibits A5, B1 and A6 had no “evidential value.” The appellate court held that even if the appellants had actually committed the alleged crimes, nothing in the testimonies of all the four prosecution witnesses suggested so. The court castigated the police for a “wishy-washy” investigation of the case, adding that the investigation of the Special Investigative Panel, set up on the case in 1999, was strange to the nation’s criminal justice system. Pemu said, “PW2 and PW3 said that they were coerced to testify against the appellants and the incompleteness of the evidence of PW4 – all these leave so much to be desired.” According to Pemu, the investigation conducted by the SIP on the case was a usurpation of the power of the police under sections 214 of the constitution as well as under the provisions of the Police Act. She said, “The prosecution having failed to prove its case against the appellants, the appellants are entitled to being discharged and acquitted. “Therefore the judgment of Justice Mojisola Dada of the Lagos High Court on January 30, 2012 is hereby set aside. “The conviction and the sentence to death by hanging passed on Maj. Hamza Mustapha and Lateef Shofolahan for the murder of Alhaja Kudirat Abiola on June 4, 1996, is hereby set aside, and they are hereby discharged and acquitted.” Shofolahan’s counsel, Mr. Olalekan Ojo, who led the defence team for both appellants at the lower court, said al-Mustapha and Shofolahan were victims of “a perverse judgment; luckless victims of politics of the South-West and luckless victims of politics at the top.”
Posted on: Sat, 13 Jul 2013 12:12:01 +0000