Ibori: A’Court Judges Chide British Police for Concealing Fraud Evidence

By Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

Judges handling the appeal filed by a former Delta State Governor, Chief James Ibori, challenging his conviction by a London court, have decried the failure of London Metropolitan (MET) Police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), to disclose evidence of police corruption in the fraud case brought against him.

Ibori who was charged to court for laundering almost £50 million, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a 13-year jail term in 2012. He was released in 2016 after serving four years. 

But the former governor had filed an appeal, challenging his conviction, on the grounds that if he had been told about the corruption intelligence, he would not have pleaded guilty.

The Judges – Lord Justice Gross, Mr. Justice William Davis and Mr. Justice Garnham, who are sitting on Ibori’s appeal, noted last Thursday that the failure of MET and CPS to hand over intelligence could have undermined the case against the former governor.

Ibori’s media aide, Tony Eluemunor, in a statement yesterday quoted the judges to have said: “We do not minimise the prosecution’s disclosure failures in this case. To the contrary, we take a grave view of them, as recent events have yet again emphasized that disclosure failures can cause great injustice.”

MET was said to have had intelligence since 2007 that one of its investigating officers was being paid for information about the case but was denied by the authorities.

According to the judges, there were at least four occasions in 2013 and 2014 when there were opportunities for the authorities to have disclosed the evidence but they did not until 2016, describing it as a “serious communications breakdown within the prosecution team.”

However, appeal by Ibori’s solicitor, Bhadresh Gohil, who was convicted for being an accomplice in the money-laundering plot, was rejected last February on the grounds that he had knowledge of the alleged police corruption at the time of the trial but did not use it.

Ibori’s lead counsel, Ms. Sasha Wass, QC, in November 2016, wrote to Alison Saunders, the director of public prosecutions (DPP), alleging that the failure to carry out a proper disclosure review “allows the police role in bribery and its concealment in five separate trials over eight years to go unreported.”

Ms Wass also claimed in correspondence to the DPP that she and the CPS were “seriously misled” for years by MET detectives over the source of the corruption intelligence, saying that its relevance was hidden from counsel.

The judges asked the prosecution to respond before they give their ruling on the Ibori’s appeal.