Headline
Court Revokes FG’s Search Warrant After Five-hour Siege To Justice Odili’s Abuja Home
Published
2 years agoon
By
EditorA Chief Magistrates’ Court has revoked a search warrant granted to the Joint Panel Recovery unit of the Federal Ministry of Justice to search the home of Supreme Court Justice Mary Odili.
The panel, which comprises the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the Nigeria Police Force and the Ministry of Justice, had obtained a search warrant from the magistrates’ court after a whistleblower, Aliyu Umar, claimed to have observed illegal activities going on at No. 9, Imo Street, Maitama, Abuja.
Umar’s affidavit dated October 13, 2021, read in part, “I have observed some illegal activities going on in those houses within Abuja are illegal and hereby report the said matter to the law enforcement agency.
“I hereby state that all information provided by me to the EFCC is true and correct to the best of my knowledge.”
In a second affidavit deposed to by a senior police officer, CSP Lawrence Ajodo, the panel applied to the chief magistrate in Abuja seeking a search warrant to search the house.
READ ALSO: BREAKING: Policemen Refuse To Vacate Supreme Court Justice, Odili’s Home As EFCC Denies Role
The Chief Magistrate, Emmanuel Iyanna, subsequently approved the search warrant on October 29, 2021.
Armed with the search warrant, the police and other members of the panel stormed the house which turned out to be the home of Supreme Court Justice Mary Odili, who is also the wife of former Governor Peter Odili of Rivers State.
She was said to have resisted the attempts by the policemen to search her house, insisting that the house belonged to her and not her husband.
A top source said, “EFCC operatives armed with a search warrant stormed Justice Odili’s home today, claiming to be investigating her husband. Justice Odili insisted that it was her personal house and not her husband’s.
“As I speak to you, the operatives are still there, insisting that they must search the house.”
But the EFCC Spokesman, Mr Wilson Uwujaren, said, in a statement, that the commission had no hand in the matter and advised members of the public to disregard any news to the contrary.
The statement read in part, “The attention the EFCC has been drawn to claims in a section of the media that operatives of the commission today, October 29, 2021 stormed the Maitama, Abuja home of a Judge of the Supreme Court, Justice Mary Odili, purportedly to execute a search.
“The commission, by this statement, wishes to inform the public that the report is false as it did not carry out any operation at the home of Justice Odili. If there was any such operation as claimed by the media, it was not carried out by the EFCC. The commission enjoins the public to discountenance the report.”
Amid the controversy, however, the chief magistrate issued an order on Friday night accusing the government of misleading the court.
The order read, “Upon misrepresentation to this honourable court that led to the issuance of a search warrant in favour of Joint Panel Recovery, Ministry of Justice, against House 9, Imo Street, Maitama, Abuja, dated October 29, 2021. In view of the above fact, the said search warrant is hereby revoked.”
Peter Odili, who was governor from 1999 to 2007, obtained a perpetual injunction from the Federal High Court in 2007 which barred the EFCC from investigating or prosecuting him.
In 2020, he again approached the Federal High Court to get another injunction to stop an impending probe. Last month, the former governor sued the Nigeria Immigration Service for seizing his passport at the airport.
READ ALSO: BREAKING: EFCC Operatives Storm Supreme Court Judge’s Home
In its response, however, the NIS said it was the EFCC that asked it to seize Odili’s passport as part of a probe.
Justice Inyang Ekwo, however, ordered Immigration to release the passport to Odili immediately.
(PUNCH)
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Headline
Heavy Floods in UAE, Afghanistan, Pakistan, 135 People Killed
Published
2 hours agoon
April 18, 2024By
EditorAround 70 people have been killed by heavy rains lashing Afghanistan over the past five days, the government’s disaster management department said on Wednesday.
Neighbouring Pakistan has also been hammered by spring downpours, with 65 people killed in storm-related incidents as rain falls at nearly twice the historical average rate, officials told AFP.
Dubai’s flagship Emirates airline cancelled all check-ins on Wednesday as staff and passengers struggled to arrive and leave, with access roads flooded and some metro services suspended.
Afghanistan was parched by an unusually dry winter that desiccated the earth, exacerbating flash-flooding caused by spring downpours in most provinces.
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Disaster management spokesman Janan Sayeq said “approximately 70 people lost their lives” as a result of rains between Saturday and Wednesday.
Fifty-six others have been injured, he added while more than 2,600 houses have been damaged or destroyed and 95,000 acres of farmland wiped away.
Giving a smaller death toll last week, Sayeq said most fatalities at that point had been caused by roof collapses resulting from the deluges.
The United Nations last year warned that “Afghanistan is experiencing major swings in extreme weather conditions”.
After four decades of war, the country ranks among the nations least prepared to face extreme weather events, which scientists say are becoming more frequent and severe due to climate change.
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At least 25 people were killed in a landslide after massive snowfall in eastern Afghanistan in February, while around 60 were killed in a three-week spate of precipitation ending in March.
In Pakistan, heavy downpours between Friday and Monday unleashed flash floods and caused houses to collapse, while lightning killed at least 28 people.
The largest death toll was in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where 32 people have died, including 15 children, and more than 1,300 homes have been damaged.
“All the casualties resulted from the collapse of walls and roofs,” the spokesman for the province’s disaster management authority, Anwar Khan, told AFP on Wednesday.
Dubai’s giant highways were clogged by flooding and airport passengers were urged to stay away on Wednesday as the glitzy financial centre reeled from record rains.
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Huge tailbacks snaked along six-lane expressways after up to 254 millimetres of rain – about two years’ worth – fell on the desert United Arab Emirates on Tuesday.
At least one person was killed after a 70-year-old man was swept away in his car in Ras Al-Khaimah, one of the country’s seven emirates, police said.
Passengers were warned not to come to Dubai Airport, the world’s busiest by international traffic, “unless absolutely necessary,” an official said.
“Flights continue to be delayed and diverted… We are working hard to recover operations as quickly as possible in very challenging conditions,” a Dubai Airports spokesperson said.
Climatologist Friederike Otto, a specialist in assessing the role of climate change on extreme weather events, told AFP it was “highly likely” that global warming had worsened the storms.
Two German-Russian men were arrested in Bavaria on suspicion of spying for Russia and planning blasts and arson attacks to undermine Berlin’s military support for Ukraine, German prosecutors said Thursday.
The pair, identified only as Dieter S. and Alexander J., were arrested in the city of Bayreuth in southeastern Germany on Wednesday, federal prosecutors said in a statement.
The main accused, Dieter S., is alleged to have scouted potential targets for attacks, “including facilities of the US armed forces” stationed in Germany.
Police officers also searched both men’s residences and workplaces on Wednesday.
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They are suspected of “having been active for a foreign intelligence service” in what prosecutors described as a “particularly serious case” of espionage.
According to prosecutors, Dieter S. had been exchanging information with a person linked to Russian intelligence services since October 2023, discussing possible sabotage acts.
“The actions were intended, in particular, to undermine the military support provided from Germany to Ukraine against the Russian aggression,” prosecutors said.
The accused allegedly expressed readiness to “commit explosive and arson attacks mainly on military infrastructure and industrial sites in Germany”.
To this end, Dieter S. collected information about potential targets, “including facilities of the US armed forces”.
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Fellow accused Alexander J. began assisting him in March 2024 at the latest, they added.
Dieter S. scouted some of the potential targets by taking photos and videos of military transport and equipment. He then allegedly shared the information with his contact person.
Dieter S. also faces a separate charge of belonging to a foreign terrorist organisation, as prosecutors strongly suspect he was a fighter of an armed unit of the so-called “People’s Republic of Donetsk” in eastern Ukraine in 2014-2016.
Germany has been shaken by several cases of alleged spying for Russia since the invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, amid suggestions that officials in Berlin are too sympathetic to Moscow.
A former German intelligence officer is currently on trial in Berlin, accused of handing information to Moscow that showed Germany had access to details of Russian mercenary operations in Ukraine. He denies the charges.
In November 2022, a German man was handed a suspended sentence for passing information to Russian intelligence services while working as a reserve officer for the German army.
AFP
Headline
JUST IN: Chief Of Defence Forces Involved In Chopper Crash
Published
3 hours agoon
April 18, 2024By
EditorA millitary chopper carrying Kenyan Chief of Defence Forces, Francis Ogolla on Thursday afternoon crashed at the Kaben-Cheptulel border between Elgeyo Marakwet and West Pokot counties.
The chopper was reportedly carrying nine people at the time it went down.
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