Ibori lawyers detail police corruption at London Appeal Court hearing
*James Ibori
(Nigeria) The Court of Appeal hearing in the Chief James Ibori
London and associates cases continued at the weekend.
Ibori’s Media Assistant, Tony Eluemunor in a statement on Sunday, said Ibori’s legal
team increased the heat on DC John McDonald who started the British
investigation with DC Peter Clarke and played a pivotal role in the attempted
confiscation proceedings.
Since 2007, Ibori’s lawyers and those of all other parties
have repeatedly claimed McDonald’s investigations were wholly deficient and
failed to uncover any evidence of theft from Delta State. Instead DC McDonald
and his colleagues built a case on inferences under a case called R (Regina) v
Anwoir.
The case was thus based on their prejudicial and incompetent
interpretations as the case had to do with terrorism money as opposed to
corruption charges.
Eluemunor’s statement specifically said DC McDonald’s team
failed to approach any of the key individuals or offices in Delta State or the
alleged remitting banks to support their claims. Significantly, DC McDonald’s
team failed to investigate any of Ibori’s legitimate wealth. They ignored all the relevant evidence that
he had businesses and so other legitimate sources of income while he was
Governor.
Most of all, though there were strong suspicions around
McDonald’s investigations between 2007 and 2011 but the Prosecution, led by
Sasha Wass QC and Esther Schutzer-Weissman ignored the evidence in the case
including the evidence of legitimate wealth.
In turn they repeatedly misled the Court. Even today, the Courts and public are misled
with figures of £90 million allegedly stolen by Ibori. This is designed to
prejudice the public perception.
Unknown to Ibori or any of the defendants at the time was
that the Met police had commenced an internal anti- police corruption
investigation into DC McDonald and RISC Management in early 2007 and got a
substantial intelligence of wrong doing by McDonald.
This investigation, called Operation Limonium included
covert tactics of monitoring McDonald’s telephone and the mounting of a full
scale covert surveillance operation after receiving high grade and reliable
telephone intercepts of calls in which Cliff Knuckey of RISC Management Limited
boasted of paying McDonald £5,000 at a London pub.
It was only in 2013, that the police then uncovered a
mountain of significant evidence of corruption including, telephone contact,
numerous corrupt payments, but this was disclosed to the defence only in 2016.
Jonathon Kinnear QC, acting for the Crown submitted to the
Court that the handwritten note from Micheal McCrone of the CPS dated a 5 Nov
2014 conference. He confirmed that this had disclosed/made available to all
counsel. The CPS knew of Limonium as early as February 2012 but failed to
disclose this.
The legal teams were allowed a maximum of 25 pages to
present their Client’s appeal including an order from the Court that the font
size should not be smaller than 12 points. Several of the legal teams were not
allowed funding for Leading Counsel, only junior barristers and there was no
funding for solicitors. The legal teams
were allotted the following time to make their submissions for appealing, James
Ibori 3 hours, Onuigo/Christine Ibori 1 hour and De Boer 1 hour.
In another development, the Ijaw nation rallied at a
reception in Akugbene Town, to honour Chief Ibori with a chieftaincy title, for
the developmental strides he brought to the Akugbene town, the Ijaw nation and
the entire Delta State during his 1999 to 2007 governorship tenures.
The statement said that Ibori was particularly touched by
this uncommon gesture of gratitude that came his way good eleven years after he
had left office.
The statement added that the people of Akugbene reminded
Ibori while conferring the title of Izonfini-Owei of Ijaw on him that until he
built the 612 metres long Bomadi Bridge over River Forcados, at the cost $50million
cars had no access to the Bomadi LGA and it other 11 communities, namely:
Ogriagbene, Esama, Akugbene, Bomadi, Kpakiama, Ekamuta-gbene, Azebiri,
Ogodobiri, Okoloba and Kalafuo-gbene. The Bridge made possible the first road
connection between the Ijaw mainland and the riverine areas.
By June 2005 when the bridge was completed, no other state
government in Nigeria had built a bridge of such magnitude anywhere in Nigeria.
Governor of Delta State, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, thus said on Saturday that
“Chief James Ibori's relentless developmental stride while in office has
lessened the means for people to access riverine communities of the State.”
Okowa Speaking at Akugbene Town during the 20th coronation
anniversary of HRM, Stanley Luke, Kalanama Viii, Pere of Akugbene -Mein
Kingdom, expressed joy that he and his entourage were able to access the
Akugbene town by road network unlike in the past when the town could only be
reached by the water way: "I must thank our leader, former Governor James
Ibori, who because he is a courageous and bold man, he took on a project at
that time that was nearly impossible for state governments to undertake.
Chairman the occasion and former Deputy Speaker of the House
of Representative, Hon Austin Okpara hailed Chief Ibori for making the first
step that opened up Ijaw land.
He told Ibori: “I feel very proud to see you honoured by the
Ijaws over 10 years after you left office for building the famous Bomadi
Bridge. Congrats, Sir. This is what I call true honour. God bless you, Sir.”
HRM Luke, Kalanama V111 the Pere of Akugbene-Mein Kingdom in
his address thanked Governor Okowa, Chief Ibori ,Okpara and his subjects for
the rousing turnout in his 20th coronation anniversary celebration.
Kalanama V111 said the crowd no doubt, marvelous because the
town can now be accessed by road, thanking Ibori for constructing the bridge at
Bomadi which he said have opened up almost all the communities in the area.
Kalanama Viii later presented a plague titled Izon-finiowei to Chief Ibori and
other plagues to some deserving sons and friends of the kingdom.
The N4.84 Bomadi bridge was the first of three others in all
three Senatorial Districts of the state; Omadinor, Igbukuland and Olomo – linking the Itsekiri, Ndokwa and
Urhobo mainland to their riverine areas.
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