- Ibori vows to appeal order
The Southwark Crown Court in London on Friday made an order for the confiscation of 101.5 million pounds ($130 million) from Chief James Onanefe Ibori, a former Nigerian state governor.
In February 2012 the former governor of Delta state pleaded guilty to 10 offences relating to conspiracy to launder funds from the state, substantive counts of money laundering and one count of obtaining money transfer by deception and fraud.
The sum sum in question is about N105,300,000,000 (one hundred and five billion, three hundred million naira).
He was eventually sentenced to 13 years in prison but released on December 21, 2016, upon a court order.
Judge David Tomlinson of Southwark Crown Court said Ibori should pay the sum immediately or face an eight-year jail sentence.
Ibori is in Nigeria and has said he would appeal against the confiscation order, one of the biggest issued against an individual in recent British legal history.
Chief Ibori in a post on his Facebook wall said: “The Judge in this case appears to have cast aside any pretence of impartiality and has made an order which is both wholly unrealistic and unrealisable.”
Judge Tomlinson formally declared that Ibori had benefited from criminal conduct in the sum of 101.5 million pounds.
“I make a confiscation order in that sum because Mr Ibori has not satisfied me nor really has he tried to satisfy me that he is incapable of paying the full amount,” the judge said.
“There is no reason to allow time for the sum to be paid. I set a term of eight years’ imprisonment in default of payment.”
Ibori was governor of oil-producing Delta State from 1999 to 2007 and was extradited from Dubai to Britain in 2011. He pleaded guilty in 2012 to 10 counts of fraud and money-laundering and received a 13-year jail sentence of which he served half, as is standard.
The case was hailed as a landmark in the fight against corruption in Britain, a global money-laundering hub, and in Nigeria, where self-enrichment by the ruling elite has been one of the main factors holding back development for decades.
Ibori’s Reaction on Friday to London court’s confiscation order as appears on his Facebook wall. 👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾
Albert Einstein is quoted as saying that the “definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result”.
If that is true then I must be going mad because in over a decade since the British Courts have been persecuting myself and those close to me – I kept believing that justice and fairness would eventually triumph.
In hearing after hearing through the years, despite some of the most logic defying rulings against me- I still believed. Despite clear evidence of police corruption against the main officer in my case (evidence so strong that it caused the lead prosecutor to resign from my case) I still believed. Despite a clear victory in my 2013 Confiscation hearing which left the Judge unable to make an order against me, only to have him rule that the prosecution should start the trial afresh some years later – I still believed.
However, today’s ruling from Judge Tomlinson is difficult to comprehend and even harder to accept. I have to move past the fact that the British Courts found themselves competent to sit in Judgment over contracts awarded in Delta State for contracts that were legitimately awarded and completed. I have come to accept my fate despite the inability of the British prosecutors to show any evidence whatsoever of monies defrauded or indeed missing from Delta State.
Since 2005 the British Prosecutors have investigated my assets worldwide, they have had a restraint order in place on most of those assets and they are well aware that the total monetary value of those assets is nowhere close to the sums that were the subject of today’s Order. Notwithstanding the fact that many of the assets are not and have never been owned by me – it seems that if you are my friend and you allowed me to spend some holiday time in your house, then by this order I now own your home and must ask you to sell it to satisfy the Order.
The Order made today was to be paid immediately, this was made in the full knowledge that it could take many months to actually realise the sale of many of these assets. There is an 8year default sentence, which means that if I do not co-operate and pay nothing at all, then the prosecution can apply for the imposition of the default sentence. However, as the prosecution already has a Restraint Order over the assets – the situation of my not co-operating or paying will not arise.
However, an issue arises if my Restrained Assets are sold, and the total realised from the sale does not equal the amount in the Order, then the Prosecution can still apply for part of the default sentence to be applied, but they could only ask for a sliding scale reduction of the 8 years default sentence based on the amounts
that remain outstanding. If such an application were to be made it would be vigorously contested. In the normal course of events any talk of a default sentence would normally be stayed until any outstanding Appeal has been concluded.
The Judge in this case has appears to have cast aside any pretence of impartiality and has made an Order which is both wholly unrealistic and unrealisable. He has completely disregarded any arguments, evidence or expert witnesses in my favour. It was apparent during these last 2 days that he has forgotten many of the important elements of the case which is unsurprising as it almost 2 years since the case concluded. It has taken him 2 years to write this Judgment and in the interim he has presided over hundreds of cases, but I refuse to make excuses for him.
At this point in time words fail me and so the question for me as I take my case to the Court of Appeal, is, if I continue to believe that I may finally get some Justice is this the definition of madness? I know one thing for sure, that if I do not go to the Court of Appeal to contest this outrageous Order then my people will definitely say that I am a madman!
($1 = 0.7788 pounds)
Credits: Swissinfo.ch, Reporting by Estelle Shirbon; editing by Sarah Young, additional reports by Lillian Okenwa
