The Court of Appeal Abuja Division, has reserved judgment in an appeal instituted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), seeking to invalidate the judgment of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), which had restrained the prosecution of the Chief Executive Officer and founder of the Aiteo Group, Mr. Benedict Peters.

A panel of the appellate court headed by Justice Oye Oyewumi with Justice Okon Abang, on Thursday, reserved judgment after counsel had adopted their brief of arguments for and against the appeal.

Other appellants in the appeal marked: CA/CV/71/2022, are the British National Crime Agency (NCA) and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

Respondents in the appeal are Benedict Peters, Colinwood Ltd and Rosewood Investment.

Specifically, the appeal is against the High Court judgment, which had quashed all allegations of corruption, bribery and money laundering, brought against AITEO boss and international Billionaire businessman, Benedict Peters by the British and Nigerian agencies, arising from his ownership of a number of properties.

Recall that the trial judge, Olukayode Adeniyi had held that the EFCC founded its case mainly on an undated and unsigned document that bore no name of its alleged maker, titled, “Highly Confidential Attorney Work”, allegedly issued by one Donald Chidi Amangbo.

The suit marked FCT/HC/CV/0536/17, was filed on behalf of the Plaintiffs by Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, Chief Emeka Ozoani, SAN, Chief Andrew Oru, Chief Nobis Elendu, and a crack team of other lawyers, on May 11, 2017; with an amended Statement of Claim filed on 31st January 31, 2019.
Suleiman Jibrin, represented the EFCC and 6 others; while Farouk Abdullah led others to represent the AGF.

In it’s judgment, the court held “It is hereby declared that the Defendants, by fraudulent design,suppressed and misrepresented facts in supposition that the Claimants’ properties…. legitimately acquired, belonged to Mrs Deziani Alison Madueke, former Minister of Petroleum in Nigeria, and/or were unlawfully acquired, a fact they knew or ought to know were false, incorrect and baseless, constitute the tort of carousel fraud.

Consequently, Justice Adeniyi awarded the sum of N200m damages jointly and severally against the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, SAN, and 5 others, in favour of Mr Benedict Peters and the three companies.

In awarding the sum of N200m damages against the defendants in the “Tort Of Carousel Fraud,” argued by Chief Mike Ozekhome, (SAN), the Judge strongly condemned the action of the Defendants, which by “fraudulent design, suppressed and misrepresented facts in supposition that the Claimants’ properties legitimately acquired belonged to Mrs Deziani Alison Madueke, former Minister of Petroleum Resources.”

The court had condemned the “deceitful sham allegations by the Defendants”; and held that “the unlawful means of conspiracy of the Defendants was to extract by intimidation, coercion, the assets, properties and monies to which the claimants are legitimately entitled.”

By the suit, the Claimants had claimed against the defendants, the sum of $5b USD (equivalent of N1.5 trillion at the then exchange rate of 315 to one US Dollar), for the tort of carousel fraud.

However, in it’s judgment, the court expressed disapproval over the defendants’ actions in fraudulently
misrepresenting facts in support of their false claims that the properties belonging to the Plaintiffs (Benedict Peters, Collinwood Ltd, Rosewood Investments Ltd and & Walworth Properties Ltd), which had been legitimately acquired, belonged to Mrs Deziani Alison Madueke, and were thus allegedly unlawfully acquired.

The properties which belongs to the plaintiffs, but falsely and wrongfully alleged to belong to Diezani Alison Madueke were, “270-17 Street, Unit #4204, Atlanta, Georgia; Flat 5 Parkview, 83-86 Prince Albert Road, St. John’s Wood, London; Flat 58 Harley House Marylebone, London; and, Apartments 4 & 5, Arlington Road, London.”