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Terrorism Financiers: Malami Denies Releasing Detained Suspects
Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami SAN, on Friday night, debunked the claim in some quarters that the suspected financiers in respect of whom remand orders were procured by the Federal Government have been released.
Malami insisted there was no time he ordered or facilitated the release of the suspects.
The AGF’s denial was against the backdrop of an allegation by an online medium that 300 suspects of terrorism financiers had been released.
“The report is a malicious misrepresentation of facts relating to the ongoing investigation of terrorism financing suspects in Nigeria.
“It is important to reiterate at this point that the fight against the menace of terrorism is an ongoing operation characterized by intelligence gathering, arrest, investigation, and prosecution.
“The story is inherently contradictory and substantially mischievous.
“The contradictions in the story can best be understood from the point of the analysis of the affidavit that was said to have been procured by the online medium as deposed before a court in relation to the subject matter.
“By their own showing, the Office of the Attorney General, has deposed to an affidavit on account of which an order of a court was obtained, seeking for the continued detention of those financiers that were alleged to have been in custody.
“This, by implication, established that the matter is effectively submitted to the jurisdiction of the court” the AGF submitted.
Malami posited that it was common knowledge that where a matter is submitted to a court of law, it is only through the judicial process that any subsequent action can possibly be taken. According to the Justice Minister, the question then arising from the claim is this:
“When was an application filed in court by the office of the Attorney General by which the release of the purported suspects was procured?
“It amounts to approbation and reprobation for the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation to, in one breath, obtain an order seeking for the continued detention of the alleged financiers of Boko Haram and at the same time having them released” Malami argued.
Insisting that the purveyors of the publication “must have lost their sense of logic in view of their inherent illogical position” the AGF maintained that if his interest was to have the people released, the idea of approaching the court for an order seeking for extension of time to have them in custody couldn’t have even arise in the first place.
“The most important, and in fact, the interesting aspect that people would like to know about the mischief associated with the position of the online publication was “who are the custodians of these people alleged to have been taken into custody?
“One needs to know by which communication or correspondence or application was their release procured since the matter is already pending before the court of law, and they were taken to custody on account of court order.
“It does not add up for the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation to procure the release of someone that has been in custody on account of a court order without approaching the court.
The public, in essence, are entitled to know which application was it that was subsequently filed to procure the release financiers. When was the application filed, before which court was it taken and which lawyer is it that has taken the application and where is the court order on which account the release was effected,” the AGF queried in a statement issued midnight, Friday, by his media aide, Dr Umar Gwandu.
Source: The Independent.ng
