ABUJA – The trial of the Senate President, Bukola Saraki resumed on Tuesday at the Code of Conduct Tribunal, CCT, sitting in Abuja.
Mr. Saraki is facing trial over alleged false assets declaration when he was Kwara state Governor between 2003 and 2011.
At the resumed hearing, one of the defence counsels, Paul Ilokoro, alleged that the assets declaration forms filled by Mr. Saraki had been tampered with hence, the inability of the prosecution counsel to produce the original copy before the court.
According to Channels TV, during cross-examination, one of the defence counsels, Mr Paul Ilokoro, asked the witness if he had ever seen the original copy of the exhibits he presented before the tribunal.
The witness, who led the EFCC team of investigators who worked on Mr. Saraki’s assets declaration forms, Mr Michael Wetkas said that the documents were with the CCB and that he was only furnished with other copies.
“At a point we were asked to work with officials of the CCB. In the course of our investigations, there is no how you will investigate economic and financial crime that assets will not be involved.
“So normally in the course of our investigations, we asked persons under investigation to fill assets declaration forms provided by the Commission itself.
Mr Micheal Wetkas then added that this is so almost in all cases and that in the instant case, the asset declaration form he tendered was the one provided by the Code of Conduct Bureau.
When asked if he had seen the original copy of the asset declaring form he tendered, he said he had always worked with the certified true copy given to him by the investigating team members from CCB.
However, when asked again if he had ever sighted the original, he said that he had seen it during investigation and when asked why the original were furnished to team and not the court, he said that he did not demand for it and he only used it for sighting.
He further said that the certified true copy serves the same purpose as the original.
When asked if in the course of investigation whether there were several original or just one, he said that the normal thing is to have just one original of a document.
The defence counsel then recalled a claim made by the prosecution witness that Dr. Saraki had N1.5 billion Naira in his account shortly before he became Kwara State Governor in 2003 and demanded for a recalculation of the figures as stated in Appendix 7A of Exhibit 1.
But the prosecution counsel objected that the recalculation was unnecessary since Mr Wetkas was the same person who presented those figures in the first place.
The defence counsel, Mr. Ilokoro, responded, “My lord, as you can see, the documents were dumped for the press in order to scandalise my client. It is obvious they have no coherent figures to prove false assets declaration.”
When probed further, Mr Wetkas also confirmed to the defence counsel that the stamp used to confirm the completion of assets verification documents after their investigation did not carry a date.
Ilokoro thereafter submitted that “whoever is prosecuting the defendant is hiding something, by not having bringing the original copy before this tribunal. If it is important for the investigative team to see the original, then why is it not important for the tribunal to see it?”
Wetkas however denied the allegation, saying the form was filled and signed by Saraki before a competent Judge.
