A High Court sitting in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) heard yesterday that suspended Accountant General of the Federation (AcGF) Ahmed Idris and three others are seeking a plea bargain.
It was gathered that the suspects have urged the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to arrange a plea bargain on their trial for alleged N109 billion fraud.
A plea bargaining, according to Black’s Law Dictionary, is “the process whereby the accused and the prosecutor, in a criminal case, work out a mutually satisfactory disposition of the case subject to court approval”.
Idris; his Technical Assistant, Godfrey Olusegun Akindele; a director in the Office of the AGF, Mohammed Kudu Usman; and a firm linked with Idris – Gezawa Commodity Market and Exchange Limited – were arraigned on July 22 on a 14-count charge bordering on money laundering, stealing and criminal breach of trust.
Lead prosecuting lawyer Rotimi Jacobs (SAN) said Idris reached out to him through a third party for a meeting to work on a plea bargain arrangement in their trial.
Jacobs averred that since Section 270 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) provides for a plea bargain, he agreed to meet with the defendants at an office of the EFCC but on the condition that their lawyers and the commission’s investigators (who handled the case) must be in attendance.
