The James Onanefe Ibori London trial developed a new twist at the weekend as the British Police paid Ibori’s former counsel, Mr. Bhadresh Gohil, £20,000 in an out-of-court settlement. Gohil, former UK
lawyer to Ibori, received the settlement from the Crown Prosecution Service after being unlawfully deprived of his liberty over the Ibori case.
The extraordinary payment is just the latest turn in a legal case where the hunter has become the hunted as the Police investigators and British Crown Prosecutors are now facing allegations of police corruption and a cover-up of key evidence.
The BBC celebrated the story at the weekend, with a dispatch titled, “Ibori’s lawyer awarded 20 Pounds” … as British Prosecution admits manipulation charge.
The extraordinary payment is just the latest twist in a legal case that has led to investigations into allegations of police corruption and a cover-up of key evidence”.
Actually, this payment to Gohil may be a direct result of the pressure the mainstream British media from the BBC to the Guardian, London Times, The Mail, The Telegraph, etc, mounted on the London Metropolitan Police and the courts to ensure that allegations of injustice and court manipulation by Ibori’s lawyers are fully looked into so that the cherished British jurisprudence tradition is maintained.
Now, all the investigators and the prosecutors in the Ibori case as well as all of its associated cases, especially the lead prosecutor, Ms. Sasha Wass, Queen’s Counsel (QC the British equivalent of Senior Advocate of Nigeria) have been dropped.
The two central prosecutors in the case, Sasha Wass QC and Esther Schutzer-
Weissmann, were unceremoniously dismissed from the Ibori case in March 2016. The case was removed from the Met Police and handed to the National Crime Agency. All the original investigating officers have all been removed from the case. Last week, the Police paid Gohil for an infringement committed last November. He was expected to be released then but less than a week before the release date, prosecution barrister, Sasha Wass, successfully applied for this to be revoked and Gohil was detained for three more weeks. So Gohil went to court and accused the Prosecution of blatant lies to mislead the court. Gohil, who has been seeking to have his convictions overturned since 2012, has been the target of an on-going smear campaign by the Met police and the Crown Prosecution to derail the Appeal. Gohil’s defence team has consistently claimed that the prosecution has, by extending the detention and other acts “manipulated dishonestly and acted in bad faith”. The Prosecutors have been accused of misleading the Court of Appeal. The Crown Prosecution Service on July 21, 2016 now agreed to pay Gohil £20,000 in settlement of this one initial claim and to pay Gohil’s legal in addition to his legal costs, as he was unlawfully detained for 33 days. With this victory, Gohil’s team are now preparing wider malicious prosecution actions. Gohil’s being paid by the British Police indicates that the Police recognizes wrong-doing on their path; and this confirms the the bad conduct allegation Ibori’s legal teams have levelled against the Police.
Actually, the Police have set up an internal investigation into the allegations; its result will be ready by late August this year. Yet, without even waiting for the result, in May this year, the Prosecution finally
acknowledged that it actually did after all have intelligence that material exists to
support the assertion that a Metropolitan Police officer received payment in return for disclosing information about the investigation. They then sent a letter to the
British Court of Appeal confirming the same. So far only one officer has been identified; Detective Sergeant John McDonald, who had headed the investigation
into allegations againt Ibori, was then removed from the National Crime Agency’s International Corruption Unit, where he had been on secondment. Also, weeks before that, the Prosecution wrote to the Court of Appeal alerting judges to previously undisclosed and relevant documentation. Pointedly, the letter admitted that “There exists intelligence that supports the assertion that on or about 10 September 2007, JMD [Det Sgt John McDonald] received payment in return for information in respect of the Ibori case.”
The Department of Professional Standards are the division within the Metropolitan Police that are responsible for rooting out police corruption within the Met and have spent in excess of £1m on the investigation to silence Gohil, said a source
close to the extraordinary events.