COURT ADJOURNS DASUKI'S TRIAL,PROSECUTION WITNESSES NOW EIGHT

Court adjourns Dasuki’s trial, prosecution witnesses now eight A Federal High Court in Abuja on Wednesday adjourned the trial of the immediate past National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.), charged with alleged money laundering and illegal possession of firearms, till November 2. Findings by our correspondent however showed that with the amendment of the original one count of illegal possession of firearms to accommodate additional four counts of money laundering, the number of witnesses proposed by the prosecution had increased from five to eight. Justice Adeniyi Ademola had adjourned till Wednesday (yesterday) his ruling on an application by the prosecution to present its witnesses masked and to use their pseudonyms to address them during the proceedings. The judge heard the argument on the application shortly after the Federal Government re-arraigned Dasuki on the amended five counts on Monday. But the court did not sit on Wednesday as Justice Ademola and some other judges of the Federal High Court in Abuja were said to be attending a conference. The prosecution’s list of witnesses obtained by our correspondent showed that the proposed witnesses were mainly operatives of the Department of State Services, who were involved in the search of the ex-NSA’s houses in Abuja and Sokoto. Firearms and money in dollar and naira denominations, totalling N84.6m were said to have been recovered by the operatives. The five witnesses earlier proposed and retained on the prosecution’s fresh list are the leader of the search team at Dasuki’s houses, Dahiru Dodo; the investigating officers on the case, Musa Duniyo; Ali Gurara, Samuel Ogbu, and Franklyn Usman. The three additional names in the fresh list are Jamilu Hamusu, M.M. Sani and M. Habib. The Director of Public Prosecutions of the Federal Ministry of Justice, Mr. Mohammad Diri, who signed the list of witnesses, stated that there could be more “witnesses as the prosecution may deem fit”.