Corruption trial: Salami confessed to judgment leakage – Katsina-Alu tells panel

Posted by admin Headlines, Judiciary Tuesday, April 12th, 2011

FACING his interrogators for close to six hours on Monday, the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu finally opened up on the crisis of confidence between him and the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Isa Salami, over the Sokoto State governorship appeal, revealing that Salami confessed to him that the judgement prepared by his Court of Appeal panel handling the appeal leaked before the date fixed for judgment.

Salami had insisted that the appeal panel which he set up must deliver the leaked judgment which led to the involvement of the Supreme Court.

Salami had accused Katsina-Alu of asking him to pervert the course of justice in the Sokoto State governorship appeal, with the five-man panel investigating the allegations summoning the duo and six other justices of the Court of Appeal on Monday as accused in various petitions against them.

Katsina-Alu and Salami, as exclusively reported by the Nigerian Tribune on Monday, were quizzed for several hours on Monday by the Justice Umaru Abdullahi probe panel over their alleged involvement in corrupt acts and unethical conducts rocking the top echelon of the judiciary.

Katsina-Alu, in his defence to Salami’s allegation also disclosed that Justice Dahiru Musdapher was present as the main witness in his office when Salami confessed to the judgment leakage.

Musdapher’s next in rank to Katsina-Alu was the acting chairman of the National Judicial Council (NJC) that set up the Abdullahi probe panel, while the quartet of Katsina-Alu, Salami, Musdapher and Abdullahi were classmates at the Law School and were called to the Bar the same day.

In his testimony on Monday, Katsina-Alu told the panel that “I did not, at any time whatsoever, interfere in any form or manner with the Sokoto State Gubernatorial Election Petition Appeal. At some stage while the appeal was pending at the Court of Appeal, in my capacity as the Chairman of the National Judicial Council, I received written petitions addressed to me pertaining the said appeal. One of the complaints was that the judgment about to be delivered by the Court of Appeal in respect of the Sokoto State Gubernatorial Election Petition Appeal had leaked.

-Tribunewp_posts