The Federal Government on Tuesday withdrew its charges against Alh. Adamu Abdullahi Usman, alias Dan China.
Adamu was arraigned with 25 others (among who were 16 expatriates) before Justice Musa Kurna of the Federal High Court sitting in Jos on charges bordering on illegal mining at Kompany Zurak in Wase LGA in February this year.
When the case file was called, Counsel for Prosecution, V. A. Joshua told the court that there was an instruction from the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice to withdraw the amended charges against the accused persons.
According to counsel,” the matter is slated for hearing but we have an express instruction this morning from the Hon. Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, pursuant to section 108 sub-section 1 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) to withdraw the amended charge FHC/J/6c/2018 between the FRN and Alh. Abdullahi Adamu Usman A. K. A. Dan China and 25 others dated 19th day of February, 2018 and filed on 20th day of February, 2018. That is our humble application.”
The defence team led by J. B. Danboyi and Gyang Zi did not object. Consequently, Justice Kurna held thus “from the above section, I see no reason why the application cannot be granted.
In the absence of objection from the defence, the application is granted and the case is hereby struck out.”
In view of the development, defence counsel immediately requested that the all document, including international passports of the accused persons with the court be released to them and the Judge also granted the request.
Answering questions from press men after court session, Barr Danboyi said that the implication of this is that the allegation that the accused were involved in illegal mining stands not to be true and it also means that they are free men, particularly the expatriate. according to Counsel, another good thing about the development was that the expatriate now know that there is rule of law in Nigeria.
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