N2.1 Billion Arms Deal: Dokpesi Is Innocent; Court Acquits Him |The Source

By Akinwale Kasali

After years of prosecution, and what many saw as persecution, founder of Ray Power/Africa Independent Television, which parent body is DAAR Communications, Dr Raymond Dokpesi has been found innocent.

The Court of Appeal in Abuja, the Nation’s Capital discharged and acquitted him of the charges of Money Laundering and  Breach of Procurement Act, preferred against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.

This is in relation to the disbursement of N2.1 Billion meant for Arms Purchase, alongside his firm, DAAR Investment and Holding Company Limited, while Col Sambo Dasuki was the National Security Adviser (NSA) in 2014.

In two unanimous judgments, Thursday, April 1, 2021, a three- man panel of the Court upheld the two appeals by Dokpesi and DAAR Investment and proceeded to set aside an earlier ruling of a Federal High Court, Abuja.

The lower Court had rejected the no-case submissions made by the appellants.

Delivering the judgments, Justice Elfreda Wiialims-Dawodu, held that the prosecution was unable to establish a prima facie case against the appellants and did not also prove the elements of the offences against them. It could not warrant the appellants to be called upon to enter defence.

Dokpesi and his Company were dragged before the Federal High Court on a seven-count charge of money laundering by the EFCC.

After calling 14 witnesses, Dokpesi and his firm made no-case submissions, which Justice John Tsoho of the Federal High Court, Abuja, in a ruling on November 24, 2018, dismissed, and ordered them to enter their defence, a decision Dokpesi and Daar Investment appealed against.