The corruption charges against Justice Sylvester Ngwuta of the Supreme Court has been increased by the Nigerian Government following new developments.
Justice Sylvester Ngwuta
The Federal Government has amended the charges it preferred against a Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Sylvester Ngwuta, raising fresh allegations of money laundering charges involving N505m against him according to the Punch.
The amended charges with case number FHC/ABJ/CR/232/2016, filed before the Federal High Court in Abuja, raised the number of counts from 10 to 14, alleging that the sum of N505m was part of the proceeds of Ngwuta’s “unlawful” activities.
The Justice of the Supreme Court was accused of transferring the total sum of N505m “denominated in naira and US dollars” to a building contractor between January and May 2016.
The Office of the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation which filed the amended charges on Wednesday, alleged that the offences contained in the first four counts of the amended charges were contrary to Section 15 (2) (d) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act 2012 (as amended).
The offences were said to be punishable under Section 15 (3) of the same Act. The prosecution alleged that the Justice of the Supreme Court transferred the total sum of N130m to Nwamba Linus Chukwuebuka, a building contractor, on January 4, 2016.
Ngwuta was also accused of transferring the sum of N165m to Chukwuebuka “on or about April 2016”. He was further accused of transferring another sum of N100m to Chukwuebuka “on or about April 2016”.
He was also charged with transferring the sum of N110m to the same person “on or about May, 2016”.
As alleged in the old set of charges, Ngwuta was accused in the amended charges of retaining N35,358,000; $319,596 and £25,915 during the raid on his house by the operatives of the Department of State Services between October 7 and 8.
The various sums of money were also described as proceeds of “an unlawful activity”.