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The Court of Appeal sitting in Lagos on
Thursday May 28 ordered that
electronically generated statement of
account should be admitted as evidence
in the on-going trial of former Minister
of Aviation, Mr Femi Fani-Kayode over
money laundering charges.
Fani-Kayode is facing a 49 count charge
before Justice Ramat Mohammed of the
Federal High Court, Lagos for strange
cash lodgements of over N230 million in
his account at a Finbank branch in Apapa,
Lagos while he was a minister.
Delivering its ruling this morning in
the appeal filed by the EFCC against the
judgement of a lower court in which the
trial judge ruled that the anti-graft
agency could not use the computer print
out of the statement of account of the
former Minister as evidence against him,
the appeal court set aside the trial
court’s ruling .
The appeal court four member panel of
judges in a unanimous ruling delivered
by Justice Clara Ogunbiyi said that the
only case for determination was whether
the computer print out of the statement
of account of the accused is not
admissible under the evidence act. They
ruled that the appeal was meritorious
and therefore allowed . They added that
the decision of the lower court was set
aside because computer print out is
admissible as evidence under the
evidence act. The judges therefore ruled
that Fani-Kayode’s statement of account
should be marked as exhibit D by the
trial Judge.
Fani-Kayode was last year arraigned
along with others by the EFCC before a
Federal High Court in Lagos on charges
bordering on money laundering. During
the trial, his lawyer, Ladi Williams had
raised an objection to the computer
print out of Fani- Kayode’s statement
of account which the EFCC tendered as
evidence that the former Minister
laundered bribes through his bank
account. While agreeing with the defence
counsel that computer generated document
cannot be admitted as evidence, the
trial Judge upheld the objection in his
ruling.
The trial was however stalled as the
EFCC counsel, Festus Keyamo filed an
appeal against the ruling.
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