By IseOluwa Ige
Posted to the Web: Saturday, January 28, 2006

The presiding judge, Justice Binta Murtala-Nyarko, in a ruling, yesterday, held that apart from the fact that the investigation against the accused persons were still on-going, she said the charges preferred them were grievous.

Besides, the judge added that lead counsel to the accused persons, Chief Mike Ikenna Ahamba (SAN) did not help the case of the accused persons as he did not cite any precedent relating to people charged with treason in the past and granted bail on request.

The court ruling yesterday also addressed two other separate issues raised in the bail application including a request on the court to void the entire treason charge against the accused person on the account of its incompetence and the relocation of the accused persons from the SSS custody to the prison custody.
Ruling on the request by the accused person to void the treason charge on account that it was not accompanied with proof of evidence, the judge held that although filing a criminal information without a proof of evidence was a defect, such defect was not serious enough to warrant annulment of the entire charge. The trial judge consequently ordered prosecution to file and furnish the defence with proof of evidence in the case within two weeks.

But the court moved in favour of the accused persons over their demand that they be remanded in prison custody.
Justice Nyarko who gave the order for the relocation of the accused persons from the SSS custody to prison said they should be given maximum security there in order to allay the fears expressed by the prosecution that their security could not be guaranteed in prison.

But counsel to the accused persons, Chief Ahamba (SAN) yesterday said that it would contest the ruling of the court. Full blown trial in the case was adjourned till March 10, this year.

But moments after the court rose yesterday, Chief Ahamba (SAN) had a discussion with the SSS men on the modality of the relocation of the accused persons from their custody to prison as ordered by the court.

A senior officer of the SSS and a lawyer who robed in court during proceedings yesterday told Chief Ahamba (SAN) that the relocation of the accused persons was not a problem, adding that they were willing to comply with the order of the court.

The lawyer and SSS official who did not disclose his name however solicited the co-operation of Chief Ahamba to allow him keep the accused persons in the Peugeout Expert that brought them to court pending the time they would obtain remand warrant from the court.

He even told the learned silk that he was at liberty to chat with his clients while they were on the bus.
But moments after Chief Ahamba turned his back, all the accused persons who were already in the SSS bus were driven off the court premises to the chagrin of Chief Ahamba.

He said he had expected the senior SSS official to be a man of honour.
The six others were Chibuike Nwosu ‘m’ 23 years old, Benedict Alakwen ‘m’ 45 years old, Chimankpa Okorocha ‘m’ 19 years old, Kelechi Ubabuike ‘m’ 27 years old, Ambrose Anyaso ‘m’ 46 years old and Augustine Ihuoma.