Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court, Abuja has slated October 14 for ruling in an application by the Department of State Service (DSS) to represent for admission, a series of exhibits once rejected by the court in the trial of former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki, on unlawful possession of firearms.
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The Judge on Thursday fixed the date following a request to represent the rejected exhibits by the DSS lead counsel, Oladipupo Okpeseyi SAN.
Okpeseyi, in the middle of Thursday’s proceedings, applied orally to Justice Lifu to shift the sitting of the court to DSS Headquarters in Abuja for the purpose of inspecting some vehicles said to have been recovered in Dasuki’s house during 2015 search warrant.
He said the vehicles have been parked at the DSS headquarters for the past 10 years and should be inspected by the court for the purpose of admitting them as exhibits against Dasuki.
Apparently taken aback by the request, the Judge requested to know the nature of the exhibits to be inspected at the DSS headquarters.
In response, DSS lawyer informed the Judge that they were those listed on the search warrant as items 18 to 28 and recovered from the Abuja house of the retired Army Officer.
When reminded that the exhibits have been rejected and marked rejected by the same court, the senior lawyer claimed that he has right to represent them for the court to admit them against the defendant.
While arguing his application for representation of the rejected exhibits, Okpeseyi cited several authorities, adding that the exhibits were marked rejected in the previous proceedings because the foundation for tendering them for admission at the time was not properly laid.
According to him, he has now re-laid the foundation, insisted that the exhibits were rejected merely on improper foundation for admission and not on their irrelevance to the trial and urged the court to grant his request.
However, in an objection to the request, counsel to Dasuki, Mr A. A Usman said, the application by the prosecution counsel was strange and unknown to law, adding that once an exhibit is rejected and marked so by the court, such exhibit stands rejected.
Usman submitted that Justice Peter Lifu, having taken a decision on the exhibits cannot revisit the same exhibits and admit them through the back door.
He read out the earlier ruling of the Judge where it was clearly stated that the rejected exhibits have no relevance to the alleged unlawful possession of firearms and thus, failed the test of admissibility.
Dasuki’s lawyer argued that the only option opened to the DSS was to go to the Court of Appeal to challenge the earlier rejection of the exhibits rather than inviting the same Judge to sit as an Appeal Court on the same matter.
He pleaded with Justice Lifu to throw away the application as baseless, ill-conceived, misplaced, unwarranted and a ploy to draw the hand of clock backwards.
After taking the arguments for and against, Justice Lifu fixed October 14 to deliver a ruling in the application and for the continuation of trial.
Earlier, the second prosecution witness in the matter, Musa Duniyor, an operative of DSS claimed participating in the execution of two search warrants in the two houses of Dasuki in Abuja in July 2015.
He listed the bank account statement, flash drive and the 11 rejected exhibits (vehicle) as part of the items recovered in the two houses of the defendant.
It was at the point of reading out the particulars of the vehicles that Okpeseyi sought to move the court to DSS headquarters for inspection of the vehicles and their admission as exhibits.
Dasuki’s trial was initiated by the administration of late Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 on an amended 7-count charge on unlawful possession of firearms and money-laundering.
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