Court Adjourns Trial of Senator Accused of Injurious Falsehood

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A law 6Federal Capital Territory High Court sitting in Maitama has adjourned to January 29, 2018 commencement of the trial of Sen. Isah Misau who was charged with injurious falsehood contrary to the provisions of Section 393 (1) of the Penal Code.

The senator had at a press conference on August 25, 2017 in Abuja, among other things, accused the Inspector-General of Police, (IGP) Ibrahim Idris of pocketing about N10 billion monthly and failing to remit the money, realised from policemen attached to private citizens and corporate organisations, to the federation account.
Rather than investigate the allegation, the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami (SAN) dragged Sen. Misau to court on a five-count charge.

The senator representing Bauchi-Central Senatorial district was initially arraigned before Justice Ishaq Bello on October 19, 2017. He pleaded not guilty to the five-count charge and was admitted to bail in the sum of N5million.
At the Court sitting on November 28, 2017 Dr. Alex Izinyon (SAN) announced that he had obtained the fiat of the AGF to take over the matter as prosecution counsel.

He also informed the court that he filed two applications before the court, dated Nov. 28 on the same date, one seeking to correct some of the five-count charge and to add two other persons to it. Dr. Izinyon said the second application was challenging the propriety of Misau to subpoena the Inspector-General of Police to give him certain documents in his possession as well as to testify for him.

Sen. Misau’s counsel, Joshua Musa (SAN), challenged the move by the prosecution to amend the charge saying it was unnecessary pointing out that the charge in the first instance was irregular as it did not have the seal of the lawyer who filed it.

Following arguments by the two counsels, Justice Bello ruled that if the amendment was meant to correct the perceived error in the original charge, the amendment should be allowed and he adjourned the matter to January 29, 2018.