Pilot bags 15 years imprisonment for forgery
A pilot, Patrick Biyere will spend the next fifteen years behind bars over forgery of cheques.
Biyere, the EFCC says, committed the crime sometime in May 2006, along with other suspects still at large.
The commission said Biyere alongside one Tony Adeyemi and a man simply identified as Eddy, fraudulently forged and signed ten Lloyd’s TBS cheques.
The pilot was said to have attempted to export the said cheques to a foreign country through the offices of the United Parcel Services (UPS) situated at Somolu and Gbagada.
Biyere had pleaded not guilty and was granted bail.
The court would later revoke his bail over his refusal to attend trial. He was also accused of attempting to stall his trial by constantly changing his counsels who sought adjournments.
The convict who was first arraigned in 2006 received his judgment at the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos on Thursday.
Justice Mohammed Idris, while delivering the judgment today, held that it was Biyere’s ploy to continue to delay and frustrate the case, which he inherited from two judges of the court.
Idris further held that the prosecution had proved its case beyond reasonable doubts and found Biyere guilty on counts 1 to 13.
He subsequently sentenced Biyere to ten years imprisonment on counts 1 to 11 and fifteen years on counts 12 and 13. The sentences are to run concurrently.
