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The United States Attorney's Office for the District of Eastern Virginia has filed a request before the US District Court of Maryland asking that the former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, and his wife Jamilah Jennifer Abubakar be excluded from giving evidence in the on-going trial of American Congressman, William Jefferson of Louisiana over bribery allegations.
The United States Attorney's Office for the District of Eastern Virginia has filed a request before the US District Court of Maryland asking that the former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, and his wife Jamilah Jennifer Abubakar be excluded from giving evidence in the on-going trial of American Congressman, William Jefferson of Louisiana over bribery allegations.
In a recent court filing, the U.S. Justice Department argued that the request for off-shore depositions by the vice president and his wife as requested by the Congressman's lawyers were unnecessary, on the grounds that they would further delay the trial and that there was nothing new to be learned from the witnesses.
The Jefferson case is tied up in a series of procedural motions which must be resolved if the trial can begin. Among the open issues is a request that the court authorised Jefferson's lawyers to take Mrs Jamilah Abubakar's depositions in Europe and that the court also request the Nigerian authorities' assistance in obtaining testimony from the former VP and a businessman named Sulaiman Yahyah.
On Wednesday, the United States Justice Department filed court proceedings in opposition to Jefferson 's request.
A summary of the facts of the case shows that Congressman William Jefferson of Louisiana had a business relationship with a wealthy investor, Lori Mody. Jefferson persuaded Mody to invest millions in a project to bring high speed internet services through already-existing copper phone wires in various African countries, including Nigeria. Mody told the FBI that at a meeting in a congressional dining room in December, 2004, Jefferson told her that his point of contact with the Nigerian government was the president of Nigeria, not the VP.
When it appeared that Jefferson's statements that he could influence African government officials were not coming true, Mody broke off contact with Jefferson for a few months. Mody went to the FBI, suspicious that Jefferson had defrauded her. Mody agreed to tape conversations with Jefferson for the FBI, and the FBI directed Mody to re-establish contacts with Jefferson in March, 2005.
With a wealthy businesswoman expressing renewed interest in a Nigerian internet venture, Jefferson needed to show her signs of progress, and to portray himself as influential in Nigerian affairs.
Jefferson learned that Atiku had plans to visit the United States , and all of a sudden announced to Mody that he would need money to give the Vice President in order to influence Nitel to sign a contract with Jefferson and Mody's business venture. The FBI gave Mody $100,000 in marked bills to give to Jefferson . Jefferson took the money, and told Mody a few days later that he had delivered the money to Atiku. The FBI executed search warrants at the Maryland home of Atiku's wife, and at Jefferson's home in Louisiana . The search warrants revealed that Jefferson had been lying to Mody to get money from her, because there were no marked bills at the home of Jennifer Abubakar-instead, the FBI found the marked bills in Jefferson 's freezer.
The U.S. Attorney's Office clearly believed that the simplest case to bring against Jefferson was to say in court that his statements about bribing Atiku were true, and indicted Jefferson on the theory that he had conspired to pay bribes. Proving that Jefferson was just defrauding Mody would have been more complicated, even if it had the virtue of truth. The government's latest filing simply repeats this theory of prosecution, ignoring the obvious truth that Jefferson lied to Mody about bribing Atiku, and lied to her about delivering the money to Atiku, when in fact Jefferson had kept the money in his freezer. Tellingly, the government resists Jennifer Abubakar's offer to give a deposition, because her truthful testimony would hurt their theory of prosecution.
The Justice Department's latest pleading does not say anything new, and relies solely on Jefferson 's tape recorded statements to Mody. The government's motion demonstrates that it would prefer to just play Jefferson 's taped statements to the jury, rather than hear the truth. Atiku continues to deny any wrongdoing with respect to his dealings with Jefferson