JUST IN: Supreme Court frees Saraki from CCT asset declaration charges
The Supreme Court has finally set Senate President Bukola Saraki free over charges on assets declaration he was facing at the Code of Conduct Tribunal.
A five-man panel upheld Saraki’s appeal of Friday. They dismissed the remnant three counts, declaring the evidence tendered by prosecution as hearsay.
Saraki had been ordered by the Court of Appeal to appear at the CCT to defend three of 18 dismissed charges last December.
However, a Supreme Court judge, Justice Centus Nweze upheld Saraki’s appeal today and dismissed the Federal Government’s appeal.
Nweze held that the Court of Appeal was wrong to have restored three out of the 18 counts earlier dismissed by the CCT when it agreed that the evidence led by the prosecution was hearsay, but went ahead to isolate three of the counts as having been proved.
Justice Nweze quoted a part of the Court of Appeal’s judgment where the it held that “the prosecution failed to call those who have direct knowledge of the facts sought to be proved, to testify”.
