The Lagos State High Court in Igbosere has fixed November 10 to rule on whether or not to quash the murder and illegal sales of firearms charges filed by the Lagos State Directorate of Public Prosecutions against alleged kidnap kingpin, Chukwudumeme Onwuamadike, alias Evans.
Justice Oluwatoyin Taiwo fixed the date on Friday after hearing two applications filed by Evans, through his lawyer, Mr. Olukoya Ogungbeje, challenging the competence of the two fresh charges and seeking to quash them.
The two fresh charges are different from one, involving kidnapping, on which Evans and his co-defendants were earlier arraigned on August 30, 2017 before Justice Hakeem Oshodi of the Ikeja division of the court.
The Lagos State DPP had on Monday attempted to arraign Evans and others on the two fresh charges, but the move was resisted by Evans’ lawyer, Ogungbeje, who contended that the charges were incompetent, saying he had filed two applications seeking to quash them.
Justice Taiwo had then adjourned till Friday to entertain the applications.
Moving the applications on Friday, Ogungbeje described the new charges as an abuse of court processes, contending that some of the counts bordering on kidnapping were merely a duplication of the ones filed before Justice Oshodi in Ikeja.
“Counts 4 and 5 constitute a gross abuse of court processes as similar charges on the same offence of kidnapping had earlier been filed by the prosecution against the same first defendant in charge numbers LD/5962C/2017 and LD/5970C/2017,” Ogungbeje said.
Punch
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