Embattled United States Congressman, Mr. William Jefferson, is currently struggling to get one of the wives of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, Jennifer, to testify in his defence in the bribery and corruption case instituted against him by the US government.
Jennifer’s American lawyer, Mr. Edward Weinden, however said that her client was not on the run, adding that she was willing to give her testimony at mutually agreed neutral ground, outside the US.
Jefferson is being tried based on his complicity in an alleged bribery case involving him and the former vice-president in August 2005.
The bribe was part of a scheme involving him to promote Nigeria‘s adoption of internet technology from iGate Inc; an American firm.
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Jefferson allegedly told an informant that he would need to give Atiku $500,000 to help secure the contracts. There was no evidence that the former Number Two citizen received or asked for the bribe.
Jefferson had allegedly collected $100,000 from a business partner to give Atiku, but $90,000 of the marked money was later found in his house wrapped in a foil and neatly tucked away in a freezer.
According to a US-based Nigerian news agency reports, the Congressman‘s attorneys, said they found it difficult getting Jennifer, in any of her addresses in Nigeria and the US, thereby making the task of serving her court-authorised subpoena impossible.
They added that the former VP‘s lawyers in the US had also refused to help locate her new address on the excuse that they had no such authorisation from the Abubakars.
In papers filed last week in a US district court in Virginia, lawyers to the Congressman said ”the defence unsuccessfully attempted to serve a trial subpoena on Mrs. Abubakar at the home she owned in Potomac, Maryland. The Defence then requested that Mrs Abubakar‘s American counsel accept service of a trial subpoena on her behalf, but was told that they were not authorised to do so.”
The Congressman‘s lawyers have stated that the US lawyers of the former VP advised them that ”Mrs. Abubakar now lives outside of the US, but that they were not authorised to provide the defence with her current residential address.”
The US Congressman who has been accused of conspiring to violate the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Acts, FCPA, through the alleged payment of a bribe to the former vice-president, filed a new motion last week at a US district court in Virginia seeking the court‘s approval of alternative means to serve her a trial subpoena.
After the US court had authorised the issuance of a trial subpoena on Jennifer in July last year, the defence lawyers said they sought to serve the subpoena abortively.
According to the new court papers: ”The defence then sought to personally serve Mrs. Abubakar in Nigeria. Nigerian attorney, David Ogebe, obtained addresses for a Nigerian residence of the Abubakars and for the Gede Foundation, a foundation for the promotion of health in Nigeria that was founded and run by Mrs. Abubakar.”
However, the effort failed, according to the defence lawyers.
The defence team said, ”Mr Ogebe attempted to serve Mrs Abubakar at each of those locations, but was unsuccessful. Ogebe was advised by the Executive Director of the Gede Foundation, Boglosa, that Mrs. Abubakar was not in Nigeria and that her current addressed could not be released to him, ” according to Jefferson‘s new motion.
Previous attempts by Jefferson and his lawyers to secure the testimony of Mrs Abubakar failed when a US court rejected a plan to take her deposition outside the US.
Weinden, who spoke with our correspondent on the telephone on Tuesday, said that the US laws allowed her to give her testimony outside the US.
Weinden said, “If the court agrees to take her testimony today, she will make the arrangement. She is not accused of anything, so she has no reason to be on the run.”
source:the punch
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