Following the persistent absence of the second defence witness (DW2) to give evidence, the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Wednesday foreclosed his evidence in the trial of the former head of the Intelligence Response Team (IRT), DCP Abba Kyari, over an alleged cocaine deal.
The ruling followed an oral application to that effect by counsel to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Joseph Sunday, who is prosecuting Kyari and his co-defendants on an eight-count charge.
The prosecution counsel had argued that the purported letter submitted by the witness (DW2), stating that he would be unable to appear in court on the grounds of ill health, did not disclose the nature of the witness’s sickness or the hospital where he was receiving treatment. He urged the court not to attach any probative value to the letter and to foreclose the witness’s evidence.
It would be recalled that Kyari, alongside four other suspended IRT officers, including the two now-convicted drug traffickers, is being prosecuted by the NDLEA on an eight-count charge on behalf of the Federal Government.
The agency had accused Kyari and the officers of tampering with cocaine recovered by the IRT officers from the arrested drug traffickers at the airport.
The four officers are ACP Sunday J. Ubua, ASP Bawa James, Insp. Simon Agirgba and Insp. John Nuhu, listed as the second to fifth defendants respectively.
Although the two convicted drug traffickers, Chibunna Umeibe and Emeka Ezenwanne, listed as the sixth and seventh defendants, pleaded guilty to the counts, Kyari and his men pleaded not guilty to the charges preferred against them.
The trial judge had, on Monday, held that the court would foreclose the testimony of the second defence witness if he failed to appear in court on Wednesday and ordered lawyers to the first to fifth defendants to submit to the court the names of the witnesses they intended to call in the matter.
At the proceedings on Wednesday, Julius Mba, counsel to Kyari and Insp. Simon Agirgba, informed the court of a subpoena served on the NDLEA to produce the list of its officers at the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu, on 19 January 2022, when the alleged crime for which Kyari and his co-defendants are being prosecuted was committed.
He said the production of the list of NDLEA officers on duty at the airport on that date would help the defence decide what to do next in the matter.
Prosecution counsel, Sunday Joseph, who faulted the subpoena on the grounds that it was addressed to the Director-General of the NDLEA, an office he said did not exist in the agency, said the NDLEA had the office of Chairman/Chief Executive Officer and Agency Secretary, not a Director-General.
Joseph, however, promised that an officer of the agency would, on Thursday, produce the list of NDLEA officers on duty at the airport on the said date when the alleged crime was committed.
Consequently, the trial judge, Justice Emeka Nwite, adjourned the matter until Thursday for continuation of the trial.