A’Court hears al-Mustapha’s case, reserves judgment
JUNE 11, 2013
Maj. Hamza al-Mustapha
The Court of Appeal in Lagos on Monday heard the appeal filed by Maj. Hamza al-Mustapha and his co-convict, Lateef Shofolahan, challenging the death sentence passed on them by a Lagos High in January 2012.
The Justice Amina Augie-led appeal panel, which reserved judgment after parties had argued their cases, said the date of judgment would be communicated to them once it (the judgment) was ready.
Augie led the all-female appeal panel, comprising the two other Justices – Rita Pemu and Fatima Akinbami.
The new panel took over the case from Justice Ibrahim Saulawa, who withdrew from the case on April 29, 2013, for “personal reasons.”
Al-Mustapha, former Chief Security Officer to the late Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha; and Shofolahan were on January 30, 2012, sentenced to death by hanging for the murder of Kudirat Abiola.
Kudirat, a wife of the acclaimed winner of June 12, 1993 presidential election, the late Chief MKO Abiola, was shot dead in Lagos on June 4, 1996.
At the hearing of the appeal against the judgment on Monday, counsel for both convicts urged the appellate court to quash the conviction and set aside the sentence.
Arguing al-Mustapha’s case, former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Mr. Joseph Daudu (SAN), said the trial judge convicted his client by relying on “evidence which was not before the court, political inferences and conjectures.”
He said, “We argued that those conjectures and inferences are mere political inferences – they did not constitute the evidence before the court. The only evidence that the state led before the trial court was the evidence of the four witnesses.
“No evidence of those four witnesses supported the serious charges of conspiracy and murder for which the appellant was convicted.”
On his part, counsel for Shofolahan, Mr. Olalekan Ojo, who led the defence team for the convicts at the trial court, said, “There is a catalogue of errors in the trial court’s judgment.”
Ojo maintained that Dada’s judgment was tainted with contradictions.
He accused the judge of being “patronising” of the state.
According to Ojo, the trial judge erred in law by holding that the contradictions in the evidence of PW2 (Barnabas Jabila aka Sgt. Rogers) and PW3 (Mohammed Abdul aka Katako) were immaterial.
Both Jabila and Abdul were said to have, during the trial, recanted their separate testimonies of their involvement in the alleged murder.
Jabila, who was then a member of a small military unit at the Presidential Villa, called the Strike Force, had denied that al-Mustapha instructed him to kill Kudirat, adding that he was only induced by the state to indict the former CSO in his earlier testimony.
The Solicitor-General and Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Ministry of Justice, Mr. Lawal Pedro (SAN), urged the court to uphold the trial court’s judgment.
He said apart from the evidence provided by the prosecution, there was documentary evidence tendered by the state that proved the culpability of the convicts in the murder case.
He argued in the reply to appellants’ brief that he needed not prove to the court that Abacha regime, under which al-Mustapha wielded enormous power, was a reign of terror, during which several attempts were made on the lives of perceived opposition to the late dictator.
“Apart from the evidence of the prosecution, there is evidence of the defendants under cross-examination. In addition to the circumstantial evidence, we also tendered documentary evidence to prove the case,” Pedro said.
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