Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has found former PDP spokesman, Chief Olisa Metuh and his firm, Destra Investments Limited, guilty of unlawfully collecting N400 million from the Office of National Security Adviser (ONSA) under Sambo Dasuki.
Finding the defendants guilty on the first of a seven-count charge preferred against them by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Justice Abang noted that they breached “public trust”.
The trial judge held that the defendants ought to have known that the funds which they collected in November 2014 was proceed of crime since they had no contractual agreement with the ONSA under Dasuki.
In finding Metuh and his firm guilty, Justice Abang dismissed the defence counsel’s submission that his clients could not be convicted since Dasuki, who is currently being prosecuted, had yet to be convicted for the predicate offence of breach of trust and corruption.
But, according to the judge, “the predicate offence and the money laundering offence are intertwined”.
“The success or failure of the predicate offence does not determine the success or failures of the money laundering offence.”
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