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Federal Justice Mohammed Ordered To Continue Presiding Over Suswam’s Compromised Case

The Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Ibrahim Auta, has returned the corruption case of former Benue Governor Gabriel Suswam to Federal judge A.R. Mohammed. It will be recalled that Mr. Mohammed requested that Mr. Suswam’s case be reassigned to another justice following a SaharaReporters investigation finding that he had been bribed by Mr. Suswam.

A SaharaReporters report found that Mr. Suswam, who is being accused of N3.1 billion in theft from the time he was Governor of Benue State, bribed Mr. Mohammed to offer guidance for how his legal counsel should argue in order for him to receive a “soft landing.”

According to a press release from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) “in returning the case file, the Chief Judge noted that ‘there were no complaints or allegations of bias against the judge, either from the prosecution or the defence’, and so Justice Mohammed should continue with the case where he stopped.”

The EFCC also pointed to the May 27th SaharaReporters investigation as the cause for why Mr. Mohammed attempted to pass the case off to another judge.

It will be recalled that, following SaharaReporters release of its investigation, Mr. Suswam denied that he bribed Mr. Mohammed and even denied that he spoke to a SaharaReporters correspondent. SaharaReporters followed up by releasing an audio recording of his conversation with our correspondent where he, repeatedly, attempted to protect Mr. Mohammed from public criticism.

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