We don’t have documents linking Saraki to London property – EFCC witness

…Weapons found in my house belong to NSA office – Dasuki

PROSECUTION coun­sel in the trial of Senate President Bukola Saraki, Mr. Michael Wetkas, yesterday, told the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) that there are no official documents link­ing Senate President, Bukola Saraki to the ownership of London property in which he (Saraki) is facing trial.

Wetkas, who is an investigator with the Economic and Finan­cial Crimes Commis­sion (EFCC) disclosed this during cross-ex­amination by Saraki’s counsel, Mr. Paul Usoro (SAN). He said the pros­ecution only obtained unofficial information of the London prop­erty from their foreign partners in London and added that the partners promised to oblige them with the official docu­ments of the property, but, they were yet to do so. “In our investigation, we normally receive unofficial information from our foreign part­ners,” he said.

In addition, he also in­formed the tribunal that Saraki used the N375 mil­lion obtained from GT­Bank to buy House No. 7 and 8, whittaker Street, London in 2011 and 2015 respectively. Wetkas fur­ther said the tilled num­ber of the House No. 8, is NGL802235 and the sec­ond property Number is NGL802661.

The witness said he had requested from the GTBank to oblige him with the details of the property and the ad­dress. He said the bank told them that the ad­dresses of the property  were not disclosed to them. Wetkas said from the loan documents at­tached showed that the N375miilion loan col­lected by Saraki from GTBank and the narra­tion indicates that he used the said money to buy property in London.

“When we see the statement on the mortgage redemption transfer telex, we are convinced that the de­fendant used the funds to acquire property in London,” he said. How­ever, EFCC counsel Mr. Rotimi Jacobs (SAN) lamented the pace in which the defence was handling the case and accused the defence of attempting to confuse and demoralise the wit­ness.

CCT Chairman, Mr Danladi Umar, ad­journed the case till May 25 for continuation of cross examination.

Meanwhile, detained former National Secu­rity Adviser (NSA), Col. Muhammadu Sambo, yesterday told a Federal High Court in Abuja that the weapons found in his Asokoro residence barely 48 hours after he left in 2015 belonged to the Of­fice of the National Secu­rity Adviser (ONSA).

The weapons, accord­ing to him, were for the use of the security details attached to him as the NSA for protec­tion purposes. His posi­tion was contained in his statement he made to the operatives of the De­partment of State Secu­rity Service (DSS) which was tendered and admit­ted as exhibit by Justice Adeniyi Ademola in the ongoing trial of Dasuki on charges of unlawful possession of arms.