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Wednesday, 3 February 2016
James Ibori Freed from UK Prison, Rearrested For Another £250 million Fraud
Former governor of Delta State, James
Onanefe Ibori has completed his prison terms in the United Kingdom. But he is
yet to be a free man, as he was immediately re-arrested.
TheNEWS learnt that Ibori jailed 13
years in April 2012 by a Southwark Crown court in London was released by prison
authorities on 22 January.
He was released from Her Majesty’s
Prison in Bedford, outside of London, where he finished his prison term. He was
also initially at the Long Lartin Prison in Worcestershire.
“He is out of here”, a prison source
at Bedford confirmed on Tuesday night.
Our sources said Ibori was
re-arrested to face another charge, which borders on the confiscation of his
ill-gotten assets, estimated to be about 250 million pounds. The case initially
billed for May, will now come up in June, sources told us this afternoon.
We cannot however confirm Ibori’s new
prison.
Fifty-seven year old Ibori was jailed
for using UK financial institutions to launder hundreds of millions of pound
sterling he stole from public funds in Delta State.
His journey to jail began with his
arrest On 13 May 2010 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates under Interpol arrest
warrants, issued from United Kingdom courts and enacted by the Metropolitan
Police.
He had earlier made a mockery of
Nigeria’s legal system, walking away free from the multi-billion fraud charge
levelled against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, including
the $15 million bribe he offered the then EFCC chairman, Nuhu Ribadu.
Ibori’s case and extradition became
one of the longest, most complex and expensive operations mounted by Scotland
Yard in recent years.
Prosecutors alleged that companies
owned by Ibori and his family were beneficiaries from the sale of state assets,
including shares in Econet, a GSM telephone operator, as well as crude oil
deliveries.
Before his conviction, UK juries two
years earlier found James Ibori’s sister, Christine Ibie-Ibori and his
mistress, Udoamaka Okoronkwo, guilty on counts of money laundering, in a
verdict delivered at the Southwark Crown Court, London.
On 27 February 2012, Ibori himself
was docked, accused of stealing US$250 million from the Nigerian public purse.
He pleaded guilty to ten counts of money laundering and conspiracy to defraud. Among
possessions confiscated were a house in Hampstead, north London, for
£2.2million, a property in Shaftesbury, Dorset for £311,000, A £3.2m mansion in
Sandton, near Johannesburg South Africa , a fleet of armoured Range Rovers
valued at £600,000,a £120,000 Bentley Continental GT, A Mercedes-Benz Maybach
bought for €407,000 cash, that was shipped direct to his mansion in South
Africa
After the sentencing hearing, Sue
Patten, head of the Crown Prosecution Service central fraud group, said it
would bid to confiscate the assets Ibori had acquired his riches “at the
expense of the some of the poorest people in the world.
Also jailed with him apart from his
sister and mistress were his wife, Theresa Nkoyo Ibori, his lawyer, Bhadresh
Gohil and his financial advisors, Daniel McCann and Lambertus De Boer.
While in prison, Ibori continued to
exercise a lot of influence on the politics of his Delta state, with the
present governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, regarded as one of his disciples.
Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan, two term governor
of the state, who succeeded him in 2007 is his uncle.
Born in Oghara, 57 years ago, the
young James Onanefe Ibori was educated at Baptist High school, now Oghareki
Grammar School. From there, he went to the University of Benin, where he
studied economics and statistics. After his university education, he moved to
the United Kingdom, where he worked at Wickes DIY, married his wife, Theresa
and tainted his record with two convictions for theft and credit card fraud,
that were to later haunt his political career in Nigeria.
He became governor of Delta state in
1999 and held forte for eight years.
*This story was initially posted
early today. It was stepped down to clear some facts. We apologise for our
initial errors.
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