The appellate court sitting in London yesterday unanimously ruled that the Southwark Crown Court erred when it lifted the restraining order on Chief James Ibori’s worldwide assets on October 1, 2007.
The court rebuked the lower court and ordered the freezing of former Delta State governor’s assets.
The appellate justices said the �restraining order should never have been lifted� in the first place and therefore re-instated the order on the former governor�s worldwide assets worth $35 million.
It also ruled that all of Ibori’s worldwide assets are protected from dissipation. That means that neither Ibori nor his agents would be able to transfer or otherwise use the assets.
The issue in contention at the UK court is the fate of Ibori’s worldwide assets that were restrained, first by the Southwark Crown Court and later by the Court of Appeal.
In August, the London’s Metropolitan Police Service initially obtained a freeze on the former Delta State governor’s worldwide assets under Britain’s Proceeds of Crime Act.
The $35m is said to include a Bombardier private jet and property in London as well as money in bank accounts.
The law permits police in Britain to apply for suspect�s monies to be frozen in the pre-trial stage of a criminal investigation.
Ibori’s London-based lawyers, Speechly Bircham, obtained a letter from Attorney-General, Michael Aondoakaa, stating that Ibori had been investigated but not charged, tried or convicted in Nigeria “relating to money laundering or any other offences”.
This helped persuade Judge Goymer of Southwark Crown Court that there was insufficient proof that the assets were the proceeds of crime and he vacated the August order last week.
But the Met said they had been granted leave to appeal against Judge Goymer’s ruling.
“Leave to appeal the discharge was granted at the High Court on Monday, October 8, and pending a full appeal by the Crown the Application of Restraint has been reinstated,” a Met spokesman said.
Last week, the Met Service arrested Theresa Nkoyo Ibori, wife of the former Governor, in connection with the ongoing money-laundering investigation.
Ibori�s 39-year-old wife was arrested at Heathrow Airport, London. James McLaughlin of the Press and Public Affairs Section at the British High Commission in Abuja, had confirmed the arrest to THISDAY but refused to divulge details, saying he was not allowed to comment on an ongoing police investigation.
On the Nigerian front, Ibori had failed to sustain an ex-parte order granted by the Federal High Court in Benin which had barred the EFCC from arresting him and his retinue of former commissioners and political aides accused of corruption.
Justice Gloria Okeke, who had issued the controversial order, ruled that she had no jurisdiction to entertain the case.
The EFCC had written a letter to the Delta State government demanding some documents to audit its finances between May 1999 and June 2007. The anti-graft agency made it clear that the auditing was to establish whether or not Ibori and some of his principal staff helped themselves with state funds as alleged by some petitions.
The outcome of the investigation was expected to back the prosecution of the ex-governor both in Nigeria and abroad. Some of the documents demanded from the state government for the purpose relate to all security vote allocations and details of their utilisations from May 29, 1999 to June 6, 2007 and all contracts/projects awarded which were above N50 million.
Such contracts or projects are to include those that were executed, the ongoing or the abandoned in the state. EFCC also demanded the name of contractors, location of projects, total sum of the contracts, amounts paid as mobilisation, amounts paid up to date and current status of the contracts.
Also requested were details of projects executed through Irrevocable Standing Order Payments from May 29, 1999 to June 6, 2007; all forms of loans procured from banks and other financial institutions procured by the bank from May 29, 1999 to June 6, 2007 and all allocations and disbursements of all Local Government Joint Accounts. EFCC made all the demands through a letter dated June 6, 2007 to the Secretary to Delta State Government.
The stance of the Federal Government on the case had provoked negative comments from the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) and other human rights bodies
BBC: This Day