How Court jails Igbinedion for six years for Money laundering

A Federal High Court in Benin on Thursday sentenced Patrick Eboigbodin, an aide to a

former Governor of Edo State, Lucky Igbinedion, to 20 years imprisonment without an option of fine for money laundering.

The presiding judge, Justice A. M. Liman, also sentenced a younger brother to the state ex-Governor, Michael Igbinedion, to six years imprisonment, with an option of fine of N1m for each of the three counts 79, 80 and 81, for which he was convicted.

‎Igbinedion, Eboigbodin and four companies were arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on an 81 counts bothering on money laundering.

‎The four companies are Gava Corporation Limited, Romrig Nigeria Limited, PML Securities Company Limited and PML Nigeria Limited, addressed as the third to sixth accused persons.

The offences were said to have been committed during the administration of the former governor.

Eboigbodin was sentenced to two years each on 10 counts, while the court orderd the closure and forfeiture of assets of the sixth acc‎used, (PML Limited) to the Federal Government.

It also mandated the company to pay the sum of N250, 000.

Justice Liman noted that the prosecution proved the alleged collaboration beyond reasonable doubts but discharged all the accused persons on other counts on the ground that the prosecution failed to prove the allegations.

The judge further explained that the prosecution only proved suspicion but failed to prove illicit origin of funds deposited in the said banks.

Earlier, counsel for the first, third to sixth accused persons, Richard Ahonanuogho, acknowledged that the 10 counts brought against his clients ‎centred on money laundering as contained in Section 14 (1) of the Money Laundering Act (2004) and the law provided a sentence of two to three years imprisonment.

He, however, urged the court to use its discretion to award a fine or apply a suspended sentence as the first accused was a first offender, was still in his late 50’s and had not benefited from the said offence.

Counsel for the second accused, Abubakar Shamsudeen, had told the court that his client had pleaded leniency based on his age, being a first offender and victim of the system, based on the office he occupied when the offence was committed.

He, therefore, urged the court to apply an option of fine, not below N250, 000 or N500, 000 and not more than N1m in lieu of imprisonment.

‎But the counsel for the EFCC, Tayo Olukotun, urged the court not to be persuaded by the plea for leniency by the accused‎, arguing that their conviction was in line with the provision of the law and that the call for suspended sentence was not within the court’s jurisdiction.

The prosecution also submitted that the claim of non-criminal benefit by the first accused was not an issue because the crime had already been established.

He subsequently canvassed both option of fine and imprisonment.

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