A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory in Jabi, Abuja, on Wednesday granted a request by the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation to produce the Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court, Mr. Ahmed Saleh, and two other officials of the apex for arraignment on nine counts, including diversion of N2.2bn belonging to the court.
The Federal Government on November 3, 2016 charged Saleh alongside Muhammed Abdulrahman Sharif and Rilwanu Lawal, with the offences of receiving gratifications totalling N74.4m from private contractors providing services to the Supreme Court between 2009 and 2016.
The case was scheduled for the arraignment of the accused before Justice A.B Mohammed on Wednesday.
But neither the accused persons nor their lawyers was present in court.
It was learnt that the defendants had yet to be served with the charges as of Wednesday morning.
This prompted the prosecuting counsel, Mrs Hajara Yusuf to ask for an adjournment to enable the prosecution to produce them in court.
She said, “We were made to understand that the matter was assigned to this court just yesterday morning.
“We will be asking for an adjournment to enable us to produce the defendants in court.”
The judge in granting Yusuf’s request then fixed November 17 for the arraignment of the accused.
