Obinwanne Okeke, popularly called Invictus Obi, who was arrested in the United States in August 2019, has alleged that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) illegally gained access to his mobile phones and laptops without recourse to proper procedure.
Okeke raised this in a Preliminary Objection filed on December 15, 2019, against the charges filed by the FBI against him.
According to Okeke, who spoke through his lawyers, The Iweanoges Firm, the FBI accosted him at the airport while he was waiting to depart to Nigeria, and asked him to unlock his devices without first reading to him his Miranda rights, which entails informing him his rights to remain silent and is not mandated to cooperate with authorities without the presence of his lawyers.
They said that Okeke was not informed that “he had a right not to provide passwords to his devices to F.B.I. or other American authorities, which made him assume he had no choice but to give them the codes”, Todayng reported.
Okeke in his preliminary objection plead that the evidence acquired from his devices be rendered inadmissible by the court during trial and that the doctrine of the ‘fruit of the poisonous tree’ should be applied.
The United States District Court who filed a response on January 24, 2020 accused the defense lawyers usurping frivolous allegations in their preliminary objection.
They denied that Okeke was not informed of his Miranda rights before accessing his device.
They stated specifically that Okeke was informed of his rights at about 11:35 p.m. on August 6, 2016, shortly after he was taken into custody at the Washington Dulles International Airport and handed over to the F.B.I. airport command
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The prosecution argued that regardless of the Miranda rights not been read, the evidences acquired from Okeke’s devices were mainly corroborative evidence and therefore cannot be dismissed by the court.