U.K. and Nigeria Seek Former Politician

For several years, Mr. Ibori has been at the center of a corruption investigation stemming from his time as governor of Nigeria’s oil-rich Delta State from 1999 to 2007. Detailed allegations against him haven’t been publicly spelled out, though U.K. officials have said they involve suspicion of money laundering and conspiracy to defraud.

The U.K. opened an investigation of Mr. Ibori, called Operation Tureen, in 2006, and has frozen £65 million ($106 million) in assets related to him. But the U.K. hasn’t been able to prosecute Mr. Ibori himself. He left the U.K., where he had been living, before police could bring charges and landed in Nigeria.

In early 2010, Nigeria’s top anticorruption group, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, or EFCC, issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Ibori, who then left for Dubai. He was arrested in Dubai in May 2010 at the request of British police. A Dubai court approved the U.K. request to extradite him, a decision Mr. Ibori appealed unsuccessfully, according to media reports. Mr. Ibori has been released from custody, but isn’t free to leave Dubai, according to one of his close advisers.

Mr. Ibori couldn’t be reached to comment for this article. A lawyer who had previously represented Mr. Ibori said he wasn’t currently instructed by him.

In a televised interview with CNN in March 2010, Mr. Ibori said the allegations against him in Nigeria and the U.K. were politically motivated. “There is no truth to the allegation. There is no truth to the amount…this is all pure persecution, politics and vindictiveness,” he said in the interview.

A representative for Dubai authorities couldn’t be reached to comment on the status of his extradition. The EFCC has previously said that if Mr. Ibori is extradited to the U.K., Nigeria will request he be handed over to Nigerian authorities.

In the meantime, the U.K. has pursued his inner circle, some of whom had remained in the U.K. In recent months, the U.K. has secured convictions against his wife, sister, financial advisers and others for laundering money by buying assets in the U.K., among other things. U.K. authorities have alleged they did so in conjunction with Mr. Ibori.

On Friday, a U.K. court sentenced a longtime lawyer for Mr. Ibori to three years in prison for his role in attempting to buy a Challenger Jet and buying a property in the southwest of England, among other things. A jury found the lawyer, 46-year-old Bhadresh Gohil, guilty on five money-laundering charges in November. Mr. Gohil received an additional seven-year sentence in March in a related case, bringing the total to ten years in prison. In court Friday, wearing spectacles and a gray sweatshirt, Mr. Gohil listened to the proceedings.

“Mr. Gohil is a broken man. His life is in pieces,” said his lawyer, Ian Winter. Mr. Winter added that his client had spent more than £1 million on legal fees to defend himself in this and a related trial.

Mr. Gohil received the seven-year sentence in March after pleading guilty to conspiring to defraud Nigeria’s Delta and Akwa Ibom States of more than $37 million in relation to the proceeds of the sale of shares in a telecom concern owned by those states. Mr. Gohil admitted to charges that he conspired with others to siphon off sale proceeds into a front company to launder the money.

At the same time in March, Southwark Crown Court in London sentenced two other associates of Mr. Ibori—a fiduciary agent and a corporate financier— to 30 months in prison each for their role in that scheme.

The U.K. also has won convictions against Mr. Ibori’s wife, sister and a female associate on money-laundering-related charges in recent months. Each of them has been sentenced to five years in prison.