A Lagos High Court presided over by Justice Lawal Akapo on Monday sentenced a court registrar to 10 years in Prison for aiding Fred Ajudua to defraud Former Chief of Army Staff, Lt General Ishayi Bamaiyi $300,000.
Mrs Rosolu was Found guilty of two count Charge of conspiracy and fraud, an allegation she denied.
The Offence was allegedly committed when Bamaiyi and Ajudua were in Kirikiri prison together.
In her defence she said “I did not receive $330,000 from Lt. Gen. Ishaya Bamaiyi neither did I go to the Kirikiri Maximum Prisons to see him on Dec. 20, 2004,” she claimed while giving evidence before the court.
“I knew Bamaiyi and Ajudua only as defendants in separate criminal cases before Justice Oyewole. I never had any personal interactions with either of them until I was summoned by the EFCC in Abuja in 2013,” she said.
Rosolu claimed that she was confronted by Bamaiyi and a prison official, ACP Garba Abdullahi while in the custody of the anti-graft agency in Abuja over the alleged fraud.
“Bamaiyi and Abdullahi confronted me at the EFCC office claiming that money was given to me in a ‘Ghana must go’ bag. I told them it wasn’t me and I had never been to the prison,”
Defence witness Mr Vincent Ubi Controller of Prisons who worked at Kirikiri said it was against prison policy to bring foreign currency to the Kirikiri Maximum Prisons.
Ubi who was a Deputy Controller of Prisons from 2004 to 2006 at the Kirikiri Maximum Prisons when Bamaiyi and Ajudua were in custody made the claim while giving evidence as a key witness for the defence during the trial.
“We don’t accept dollars in Kirikiri Maximum Prisons.
“Any money brought for a detainee is taken to the Records Department and such money needs my approval before such money can be released to a detainee.
“Most times, the detainees need such monies to pay their lawyers,” Ubi said.
He said he never encountered Rosolu during time he spent working as a senior prison official at the prison.
“No visitor can come into Kirikiri Maximum Prisons without my approval.
“I have never seen the defendant before at the prison,” Ubi said.
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