A Federal High Court in Abuja has finally discharged and acquitted a former Chief of Air Staff, retired Air Marshal Mohammed Umar, over allegations of diverting N66m from the account of the Nigerian Air Force (NAF).
Justice Nnamdi Dimgba on Thursday held that he found no evidence linking Umar to the transfer of the said funds for the renovation of his private property in Abuja.
The court had on February 23, 2021, acquitted Umar of six out of the seven-count charges brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission and directed him to answer to one charge, the seventh.
The anti-graft agency had alleged that Umar sometimes in March 2012 in Abuja, indirectly transferred the N66m into the IBTC Account no: 9202077424 belonging to Capital Law Office from NAF Operations Account domiciled at UBA Plc for the renovation/improvement of house No. 1853 Deng Xiao Ping Street, Off Mahathir Mohammed Street, Asokoro Extension Abuja.
The EFCC further alleged that the unlawful act constituted an offence under Section 15(2) (b) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011 (as amended) and punishable under Section 15(3) of the same Act.
However, on the remaining seventh charge, Justice Dimgba said the prosecution failed to discharge the burden of proof to warrant the conviction of AVM Umar as “reasonable doubts do exist in the prosecution’s case as made out in the body of this judgment.
“As the law commands, I am bound to resolve the doubts in favour of the defence and I so resolve them.
“In the final analysis, I find the defendant innocent on the sole count, and consequently discharge and acquit him,” he ruled.
The judge however ordered Umar to refund the sum of N57m found to have been transferred from the NAF account for the house renovation within seven working days or have it “permanently forfeited to the Federal Government of Nigeria as a tainted asset.”
“Allowing him to retain this benefit will violate good conscience and in violation of the equitable principles of the Law of Restitution, and which abhors unjust enrichment,” the judge said.
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