How Rickey Tarfa was having illegal communication with a Judge -Witness
A prosecution witness in the ongoing trial of a senior lawyer, Rickey Tarfa, Mr. Danladi Daniel, on Thursday narrated to a Lagos High Court, Ikeja, how the defendant had illegal communications with a judge.
The witness who is a detective with the Special Task Force team of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) made this revelation during the trial of Tarfa a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).
The defendant, Tarfa was arraigned before Justice Aishat Opesanwo on two-count charge of obstruction of justice and perverting the course of justice proffered against him by the EFCC.
While being led in evidence by counsel for the EFCC, Mr G.K Latona, Daniel said;
“On Feb. 5, 2016, two phones; a Samsung Galaxy phone and an IPhone belonging to Tarfa were given to me by the commission to analyse.
“I gave the defendant two telephone forensic forms to fill which he did and appended his signature in my presence,” Daniel said.
Daniel also told the court that his analysis revealed that the SAN was in communication with one Justice Mohammed Yinusa of the Federal High Court, Ikoyi, Lagos.
“Part of the result of the analysis showed that the defendant was in the habit of making his cases go before Justice Yinusa.
“Results confirmed that there were communications between the defendant, his colleagues in the office and staff of the court.
“When cases were pending before Justice Yinusa, particularly in the month of May 2015, a staff from the defendant’s office named Esther made a cash deposit of N1.5 million into Yinusa’s account,” Daniel revealed.
Daniel further told the court that the judge was invited by the EFCC for questioning over the alleged communication with the SAN.
“The investigators sometime in 2016 invited Justice Yinusa and he honoured the invitation and was interviewed on the reason for the payment of the N1.5million into his account.
“The judge confirmed that some money was paid into his account but he could not remember when it was paid.
“He went further to put his statement into writing,” the detective said.
Tarfa’s mobile phones which were seized by the anti-graft agency and used for the analysis were positively identified by Daniel.
Details of SMS extracted from the mobile phones, correspondence between the MTN mobile network and the EFCC as well as purported call records between Tarfa and the judge however could not be admitted into evidence as it was objected by the defence counsel, Mr. Abiodun Owonikoko (SAN).
Justice Opesanwo however adjourned the case till February 13 for ruling.
