Following the transfer of the case involving the leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, Henry Okah, to the federal High Court in Jos, the trial is to begin afresh.
The case was being heard by Justice Stephen Adah of the Federal High Court, Jos before it was transferred to Abuja based on the insistence on the defence counsel, Femi Falana that the court had no jurisdiction to hear the matter. The case has since been brought back to Jos and assigned to Justice A. Liman. Justice Liman who presided over the case at the resumed hearing of the trial yesterday, informed the counsels to Okah and that of the Federal Government that the trial was beginning afresh and that all submissions to the court must be resubmitted to the court as in a fresh trial. He stressed that since the trial was commencing afresh, the issue of bail application on behalf of the accused that was pending in the court would no longer apply.
Counsel to Okah, Femi Falana, had insisted that the Federal High Court sitting in Jos had no jurisdiction to entertain the matter, maintaining his earlier position that the trial would be proper where the said offence of his client was said to have been committed. The Director of Public Prosecution, Saliu Aliyu countered, saying the issue of jurisdiction had been settled by the previous trial judge, but his argument was disallowed by Justice Liman who maintained the case was a fresh one as far as he was concerned and that all particulars relating to it be forwarded afresh. The judge then asked both parties to write and submit their written addresses for adoption when the court would sit on April 30, 2009.
The counsel to Okah had at the previous trial, argued that the court lacked the jurisdiction to hear the matter, asking that the case be transferred to an area the said treasonable offence was committed and where all the witnesses are likely to be available.