How we recovered cash, land documents, others from Badeh

Mohammed Dodi , the 15th prosecution witness in the ongoing trial of Former Chief of Air Staff, Alex Badeh has told Justice Okon Abang of an Abuja Federal High Court how cash, land and bank documents amongst others were recovered from his residence.
Dodi, a Senior Detective Superintendent with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and investigating officer in the case against the defendant, said that his team conducted a search at No 2 Mandela Street Asokoro, Abuja in the presence of the defendant (Badeh), where they recovered documents and $1million.
“Towards the end of February 2016 I was called by my team leader who informed me that the commission received an intelligence that another property is located at No 6 Ogun Rivers Street Maitama says it belongs to the 1st defendant and also there was an information that there are cars, suv saloons that were parked in his residence.
“We got to the guest room, there was a bed in the room,a side drawer and a very large wardrobes, in one of the wardrobes there was a pack of boiling kettle, when we removed the pack I saw a bag and we opened the bag which was stocked with foreign currencies.
“We counted the money which was 16 bundles of $50,000, 2 bundles of $100,000 which estimated to $1M, in that same house we also saw a red box. I cannot remember what precisely was there.
The prosecution then moved to tender the search warrant, red box and a waybill in evidence.
However, Lasun Sanusi SAN, objected to the admissibility of the red box and way bill saying they were purportedly obtained from an illegal search.
Sanusi cited Section 115 of Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) 2015, which states that the occupant of a place searched or a relation shall be at the house and see the items seized.
He said nowhere in law permitted people conducting search to go and look for strangers on the street to witness the search, adding that it must be the owner or someone nominated on his behalf by him.
He added that the witness when led in evidence confirmed that when they were to conduct the search on the defendant’s house at Asokoro, they took the defendant out of detention to witness the search.
“It is in record that the defendant was still in detention when the purported search was done in his house at Maitama which is a clear violation of Section 150  of the ACJA
“The prosecution cannot admit in evidence the purported items recovered from the house since he was not there but the search warrant can be admitted,’’ he said.
Counsel to the second defendant, Samuel Zibiri (SAN) did not oppose to the admissibility of the search warrant but opposed the admissibility of the other documents on the grounds of relevance.
According to him, if it holds that they are products of an illegality, it automatically means that they are not relevant and relevance is one of the cardinal point.
He further said that the way bills sought to be tendered had no nexus with the case before the court adding that they had no name and since this was a criminal matter, the court could not speculate as to whether they were related to the case or not.
Responding, Jacobs argued that Section 149 and 150 of ACJA which deals with house search warrant is to be executed stipulate that it can be executed in the presence of two witnesses and the person to whom the warrant is addressed.
According to him, the provision allowed the person to whom it is address to look for a witness in the neighbourhood and there is no law that says the owner of the house must be present before a search warrant can be executed.
Badeh is standing trial alongside a firm, Iyalikam Nigeria Limited, on a 10-count charge bordering on money laundering, criminal breach of trust and corruption to the tune of N3.97billion.
He was alleged to have used the dollar equivalent of the sum of N1.4billion removed from the accounts of the Nigerian Air Force to purchase properties in choice areas of Abuja between January and December, 2013.
The offence contravenes Section 15 (2) (d) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011 (as amended) and punishable under Section 15(3) of the same Act.