Court Strikes out Charges against Amigo Supermarket Owner, Others

A Chief Magistrate’s Court in Karu district, Abuja yesterday discharged three Lebanese suspects arraigned by the Department of State Security (DSS) over alleged unlawful importation and possession of large cache of prohibited firearms for lack of jurisdiction.

The Chief Magistrate, Yemi Oyeyipo, also struck out the first information report (FIR) filed by the DSS against the Lebanese businessmen.

The court also struck out the preliminary objection by the suspects’ lawyer, Ahmed Raji (SAN) on June 17, challenging the jurisdiction of the magistrate to entertain the matter.

“Having listened to the oral application of the prosecuting counsel and the submission of the defence counsel, I hereby grant as prayed that the charge filed on the basis of First Information Report (FIR) on June 5, 2013 is hereby struck out” Oyeyipo pronounced.

He added, “In the circumstance, the preliminary objection filed by the defence counsel is equally struck out and the accused persons are hereby discharged”.

But the operatives of the State Security Service (SSS) immediately rearrested the suspects and marched them to the waiting Peugeot vehicle marked Abuja BWR 245 AJ and were driven back to the SSS headquarters.

At a resumed hearing yesterday, the prosecuting lawyer Clifford Osagie had applied to withdraw the charge against the accused based on the FIR.

The SSS lawyer held that the withdrawal was predicated on the grounds that facts from the investigation show that the charges were beyond the scope of the magistrate court.

“The accused persons were remanded based on the charge in the FIR but investigation has progressed extensively and facts that appear in the course of investigation are clearly related to offences which are outside the jurisdiction of this court” Osagie informed the court.

He, therefore, applied that the FIR file of the accused persons be returned to the DSS, and added that “the case file has been forwarded to the Attorney General of the Federation for further action on the matter.”

On his part, Ahmed Raji (SAN) aligned with the submission of the prosecuting counsel that the case be withdrawn and the accused persons discharged for lack of jurisdiction.

“As rightly submitted by the prosecuting counsel offences linked on the FIR border on terrorism which are beyond the scope of this court.

“Based on this, we filed a preliminary objection on the June 17 to challenge the court’s jurisdiction. Therefore, in the circumstance, we have no choice than to agree with the prosecuting counsel and I will be urging this court to strike out the charge.

“In view of the plea to withdraw the charge against my clients, our preliminary objection has   been overtaken by events” Raji told the court.

The defence counsel said that the accused were still being detained and their case would come up on Friday at the Federal High Court.

“We are here to enforce their fundamental human rights because they have been detained in excess of the time permitted by law.”