Money Laundering: Court sends Maina’s son to prison to begin seven-year term

By Ikechukwu Nnochiri ABUJA — Following his rearrest by security operatives after he was convicted in absentia, the Federal High Court in Abuja on Thursday remanded Faisal, son of the jailed former Chairman of the defunct Pension Reform Taskforce Team (PRTT), Abdulrasheed Maina, in prison. The court, in a ruling delivered by Justice James Omotosho, held that Faisal, who was found guilty of money laundering, should be sent to the Kuje correctional facility to commence his seven-year jail term.

It will be recalled that Faisal, who is 26 years old, was convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison by the high court on October 7, 2021. The court, in the judgment delivered by trial Justice Okon Abang, found the convict guilty on all three counts of money laundering charges that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) preferred against him.

The convict, who jumped bail on June 24, 2020, failed to appear in court for the conclusion of his trial. The EFCC told the court that it got intelligence that he had escaped to the United States of America (USA). The trial court ordered that he should be arrested whenever he was found in the country and remanded in any prison to serve his jail term.

It held that the Federal Government should, upon confirming that he had run outside the country, “legally or lawfully commence extradition process to bring him into the country to serve the jail term.” Dissatisfied with the judgment, the convict’s lawyers went before the appellate court to set it aside. They argued that Faisal had been denied fair hearing by the trial court.

In its own judgment on November 24, 2022, a three-member panel of the appellate court upheld Faisal’s conviction but described the 14-year jail term handed to him by the trial court as “excessive.” It noted that the appellant, being a first-time offender, should not have been handed the maximum punishment prescribed by the law. Consequently, the appellate court, in its lead judgment delivered by Justice Ugochukwu Ogakwu, reduced Faisal’s term of imprisonment to seven years.

The convict was later arrested this year after he allegedly sneaked into the country, about four years after he was sentenced in absentia. The EFCC approached the court with an ex parte motion seeking a warrant committing the convict to prison to serve his sentence. The commission also requested that his prison term commence from October 14, 2026, when he was rearrested by the Department of State Services (DSS) in the Karsana area of Abuja.

The application, which was moved by EFCC counsel M.K. Hussain, was granted by the court. Justice Omotosho held that the convict should serve three years’ imprisonment on count one, seven years on count two and three years on count three, in accordance with the Court of Appeal’s verdict. He held that the sentences should run concurrently, starting from October 14.

The trial court had, in its verdict, held that the EFCC successfully established that Faisal operated a fictitious bank account with the United Bank for Africa (UBA), through which his father, Maina, laundered the sum of N58.11 million. The court noted that the said funds, which were deposited into the account operated in the name of Alhaji Faisal Farm 2, were sequentially withdrawn by the defendant and his father between October 2013 and June 2019.

Justice Abang said he was satisfied that the EFCC proved all the essential ingredients of the charge, stressing that the defendant reasonably ought to have known that inflows into the bank account formed proceeds of an unlawful act of corruption by his father. Aside from the prison sentence, the court ordered that the company through which the funds were laundered, Alhaji Faisal Farm 2, be wound up, with all the funds in it forfeited to the government.

The trial court had also sentenced Faisal’s father, Maina, to eight years in prison over his involvement in money laundering to the tune of about N2 billion. Maina had also jumped bail and was subsequently arrested in Niger Republic by Interpol and returned to the country for the conclusion of his trial.