The Federal Government on Monday arraigned a Justice of the
Supreme Court, Justice Sylvester Ngwuta, on charges of money laundering
and others bordering on breaches relating to obtaining of passports.
The justice of the apex court, who was charged following
the raid on his house and some other judges by operatives of the
Department of State Service, pleaded not guilty to all the 16 counts
read to him on Monday.
It was alleged in the 16 counts that Ngwuta transferred
the total sum of N505m “denominated in naira and US dollars” to a
building contractor, Nwamba Linus Chukwuebuka, between January and May
2016.
The N505m was alleged to be part of proceeds of Ngwuta’s “unlawful” activities.
He was also accused of instructing a relative to remove
some exotic cars from his house in Ebonyi while he was under
investigation in violation of the provisions of section 18(1)(b) of the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Act.
He was also accused of retaining huge sums of money in
local and foreign currencies which were alleged to be proceeds of his
unlawful act contrary to the provisions of the Money Laundering Act.
The prosecution also accused of Ngwuta of concealing the
origin of sums of money which were said to have been found at his home
during the raid on his house by the operatives of the DSS between
October 7 and 8.
Apart from the money laundering charges, Ngwuta was accused of passport offences in counts eight to 14 of the amended charges.
He was accused of being in possession of two valid
Diplomatic Passports and another two valid Standard Nigerian Passports,
when his house was raided by DSS operatives on October 8, 2016.
He also allegedly submitted multiple applications, made
false information of loss of the passports and of his age age with
intention to obtain multiple of the passports in violation of various
provisions of the Immigration Act 2015.