Legal luminary and human rights activist, Mr Femi Falana (SAN), on Friday requested the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr Abubakar Malami (SAN), to withdraw pending criminal charges against his clients, Mr Omoyele Sowore and Olawale Bakare.
Falana said there was no evidence to get the ‘RevolutonNow’ protests conveners, Mr Sowore and Bakare convicted.
He was reacting to an announcement by the AGF office on Friday that a letter had been sent to the Department of State Services to hands off the case involving Sowore and send the case files to his office.
The operatives of the DSS invaded the Federal High Court in Abuja to rearrest Sowore on December 6. The rearrest, which led to the disruption of court proceedings presided over by Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu, came less than 24 hours after Sowore and Bakare were released from custody where they had been held for over four months.
The AGF to take over the prosecution of his clients. He, however, noted that despite the directive by the AGF for the DSS to hands off the case, the DSS was still bent on fishing for evidence to file fresh charges against his clients. He stated, “Convinced that the pending case would collapse like a pack of cards, the SSS is currently fishing for evidence to nail Sowore.
“In spite of the directive of the AGF to hands over the case, the SSS subjected Sowore to a four-hour interrogation yesterday (December 12, 2019).
“The entire interrogation pertained to Sowore’s alleged links with the proscribed Boko Haram sect, IPOB, and IMN which he vehemently denied.
“At Sowore’s instance a member of the legal defence team, Mr Abubakar Marshal, witnessed the marathon interrogation. The plan is to charge Sowore with terrorism as a follow-up to the unsubstantiated allegations of a presidential media aide.
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“In the light of the foregoing, we urge the AGF to file a nolle prosequi motion to end the macabre dance which has exposed the country to avoidable embarrassment.”
He insisted that the action the AGF had so far taken on the prosecution of Sowore and his co-defendant was not a takeover “because it was the AGF that filed the case of September 20, 2019, and farmed it out to Dr Hassan Liman, SAN”.
He added, “But in view of the violent invasion of the court by the armed operatives of the SSS the AGF has decided to sack the external prosecution team and have the case prosecuted by the Department of Public Prosecution.”