Ex-SGF, Babachir Lawal Asks Court To Reject EFCC Documents on alleged N544M fraud trial

By Yemi Oyeyemi, Abuja

Former Secretary to the Government of the Federation SGF, Dr Babachir Lawal, has asked a high court of the Federal Capita Territory FCT to reject computer generated documents sought by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC to be tendered as exhibits against him in the N544M contract fraud trial.

Babachir Lawal told the court that the forensic laboratory report generated from computer was not admissible in law because they were not in their original form and not certified as required by law.

The EFCC through its counsel, Mr Ofem Uket had sought to tender a forensic laboratory report obtained from print out of Iphone belonging to one Musa Bulani to establish the money laundering charges filed against the former SGF and five others.

But counsel to Babachir Lawal, Chief Akin Olujimi SAN raised objection against admission of the documents on the ground that their sources ran foul of sections 84 and 256 of the Evidence Act 2014.

He argued that the printed hardcopy obtained from the Compact Disc is not the original source but the iPhone.

Olujimi further argued that the extraction is not marked as a Certified True Copy (CTC) adding that EFCC hacked into someone’s phone and came up with what it found and yet sought to tender it without following due process of law.

For the documents to be admitted, Olujimi argued that a certificate signed by the maker must accompany them since they are electronically generated evidence and urged Justice Charles Agbaza to reject the extracted information.

John Itodo, counsel for the second defendant, Napoleon Idenala; counsel for the third defendant, Ocholi Okutepa; counsel for the fourth and sixth defendant, M. E Oru, counsel for the fifth defendant all aligned themselves with Olujimi’s submission and adopted it as their arguments.

The prosecution counsel, however, argued otherwise and insisted that there is no need to issue a certificate, stressing that a witness has testified in court and has presented original documents.

Justice Charles Agbaza fixed June 9 for ruling on the admissiblity of the documents and cross-examination of the third witness.

Earlier, the EFCC third witness, Fatima Umar, a Deputy Head of Digital Forensic Laboratory, EFCC, narrated before the court how she received a request to carry out an examination on a digital device, an iPhone 7.

The witness said that the request was to search for deleted sms, messages, phone logs, documents and any other thing that could have possibly been deleted on the device.

She added that the iPhone was in a good condition before it was given to her for examination, stressing that she had to caught the network of the phone by putting it on airplane mode in order not to tamper with valuable data.

Umar told the court that for easy access to the deleted messages, sms, she had to adopt a system she termed ‘manual and logical extraction’.

According to her, “In this case we used the manual extraction to gain access to the iMessages and we used the logical extraction method to gain access to sms, phone calls, but it did not give us access to the iMessages.

“We used the cellebrite camera to do a video of the iMessages relevant to the case, the information generated was burned on a CD and printed out as hardcopy, which was given to the investigator”.

The witness also narrated that the iPhone belonged to one Musa Bulani and the investigator from whom the request came from, was Mr. Ibrahim Salihu adding that “The investigator requested that I go through the extraction. He said he wanted data from the iMessage.

“He gave keywords to search, he gave words like; SGF, Abia, Abdullahi. Searching the device manually, I came across a saved contact, saved under the name SGF using the cellebrite camera. I extracted it and gave it to the investigator.

“After the extraction, we analyzed and burned it into a CD using the HP workstation and printed it out using the HP LaserJet Pro m402dn. The report made to the investigator was coupled by me, I wrote the report, it was reviewed by another officer by the name Akudo Ladi”.

The former SGF is facing a 10-count charge EFCC filed against him but however pleaded not guilty.

The charge borders on diversion of funds, criminal conspiracy, and official corruption.

Those standing trial along with him are his younger brother Hamidu Lawal, Suleiman Abubakar, Apeh Monday, and two companies, Rholavision Engineering (fifth defendant) and Josmon Technologies (sixth defendant).