Al-Mustapha, Shofolan Get Hearing Date In Appeal Court

COURT of Appeal, Lagos Division, on Friday said it will on April 29, this year, hear an appeal filed by former Chief Security Officer to the late General Sani Abacha, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, and former Personal Assistant to the late Alhaja Kudirat Abiola, Lateef Shofolahan.

The appellants are appealing against a death sentence handed to them by a Lagos High Court on January 30, 2012, after they were convicted on a charge of masterminding the murder of the late Mrs. Kudirat Abiola.

The Court, presided over by Justice Chima Nweze, fixed the date for hearing of the appeal after counsels representing both convicts had applied for a regularisation of their briefs of argument.

Counsel representing both appellants, Mr. Joseph Daudu (SAN) and Mr. Olalekan Ojo, moving in terms of their motion paper, had both applied for leave to file their appellants brief of arguments and serve same on the respondent.

Justice Nweze granted both counsels’ order as prayed, and adjourned the case to April 29 for hearing of the appeal.

The convicts were arraigned sometime in October 1999 on a four-count charge of “conspiracy and murder of Alhaja Abiola on June 4, 1996 in Lagos.

The trial judge, Justice Mojisola Dada, had found both accused guilty of the offence and had accordingly convicted and sentenced them to death by hanging.

However, Daudu (SAN) and Ojo, counsel to both the first and second appellant respectively, had appealed to the Court of Appeal 24-hours after the sentencing of the convicts, challenging the death sentence passed by the trial judge.

In the notice of appeal filed by Ojo, the appellants are contending that the death sentence handed by the lower court was unwarranted, unreasonable and a manifest miscarriage of justice.

The appellants further contend that the trial judge erred in law by arriving at the conclusion that they conspired to kill Kudirat on June 4, 1996.

The appellants are therefore praying the Court of Appeal to entertain the appeal, set aside the judgment, and discharge them of the charges of conspiracy and murder.

Al-Mustapha’s appeal was premised on four grounds, while that of his co-convict (Shofolahan) was hinged on five grounds.

They faulted the judge in the treatment of the contradictory statements of Barnabas Jabila (aka Sgt. Rogers) and Mohmamed Abdul, as well as the reliance on the testimony of Dr. Ore Falomo on the bullet extracted from the late Kudirat.

The appellants also fault the rejection of portions of Jabila’s testimony, which they felt favoured them while applying areas that did not favour them.