The former Managing Director, Bank PHB Plc, now Keystone Bank Plc, Mr. Francis Atuche is in fresh trouble as the Supreme Court on Wednesday revived his six-year-old trial involving his wife, Elizabeth, who were accused of stealing about N25.7bn belonging to the bank.
A five-man bench of the Supreme Court led by Justice Dattijo Muhammad unanimously nullified the order made by the Court of Appeal in September 2016, when the lower court directed the Chief Judge of Lagos State to re-assign the case to a new judge.
“The apex court, after nullifying the Court of Appeal’s order on Wednesday, directed that Justice Lateefa Okunnu of the Lagos State High Court, before whom the prosecution had closed its case with 18 witnesses (six of whom were subpoenaed) and the defence had called eight witnesses, should continue with the case.” Punch reports
But the case had been stalled since July 2014, when the Court of Appeal, Lagos Division, ordered the re-assignment of the case to Justice Lateef Lawal-Akapo, instead of Justice Okunnu, who had been presiding over it since its inception in 2011.
Again, following a fresh decision of the Supreme Court validating a similar trial involving a former Managing Director of Finbank, Mr. Okey Nwosu, the Court of Appeal in Lagos, in another judgment which it delivered on September 23, 2016, dismissed Atuche and his wife’s objection to the charges.
EFCC’s lawyer, Mr. Kemi Pinheiro (SAN), argued on Wednesday, shortly before the Supreme Court delivered its judgment, that the Court of Appeal had, while dismissing the defendants’ objection to the charges, “curiously” ordered the Chief Judge of Lagos State to re-assign Atuche and his wife’s trial to a new judge other than Justices Lawal-Akapo and Okunnu
In its judgment which it delivered after hearing the Atuches’ lawyer, Chief Anthony Idigbe (SAN) and EFCC’s lawyer, Pinheiro, the Justice Muhammad-led panel of the apex court described the Court of Appeal’s order for the re-assignment of the case to a new judge as “perverse.”