Counsel to Chief James Onanefe Ibori, yesterday, told the Southwark Court, London, that there may be no fair trial in the confiscation hearing of Ibori due to start in June.
According to a press statement signed by Ibori’s Media Assistant, Tony Eluemunor, Ibori’s lawyer said this during yesterday’s preliminary hearing preparatory to the confiscation trial against Ibori that is due to start in June.
The lawyer, Mr. Ivan Krolic, said there are established cases of corruption against the police and the crown prosecution counsel, who investigated Ibori. This, he said, has led to dropping every member of entire police and crown prosecution teams that investigated Ibori and his associates.
Krolic notified the court that following the revelation that the police involved in investigating Ibori for money laundry were themselves involved in corruption, and were knowingly covered up by the crown prosecution, the integrity of the entire process has been put in doubt.
He said: “There are cases of abuse of process against the crown prosecution to deliberately manipulate the process to gain undue advantage and inflate the confiscation figure which will require a stay of proceeding in this case to allow for the abuse of process to be dealt with.”
The trial judge, His Honour Tomlinson, acknowledging the precarious situation of the Ibori case, especially the serious allegations of police corruption which has led the police authority itself acknowledged the corruption charges and as a result to set up a review of the process and corruption allegations against its officers, the judge, noted, “there are a lot of perceptions and it is inevitable that the team involved in the investigation and prosecution be changed following these allegations.”
Putting the judge on notice should the confiscation trial begin as scheduled while the application for crown and police abuse of process is held, Krolic said: “Our argument is that the whole process is infected and it will be wrong for the confiscation hearing to continue…the allegation is that the crown consistently and deliberately manipulated the system and forced Ibori to plead guilty and inflate the figures (of the money involved) in the light of the serious allegation of police corruption in this case.”
Tomlinson replied: “I have an obligation to keep an open mind and keep this under constant review,” and having also read the statement witness of Ibori’s former defence counsel, Mr. Nicholas Purnell, that the crown counsel misled him to cause his client, Ibori, to plead guilty, there are potentials in the statements.”
That notwithstanding, the June date of the confiscation hearing may hold though he alerted that “a number of potential hazards to this proceedings have been flagged off.”
Meanwhile, the confiscation hearing is due to start onJune 6 at Southwark Crown in London.

Related News