N2bn Pension Fraud: Appeal Court Upholds Maina’s Son’s Conviction but reduces Jail Term
The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja has upheld the conviction of Faisal Maina, son of the jailed ex-Chairman of the defunct Pension Reform Taskforce Team (PRTT), Abdulrasheed Maina, who was prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC on a three count charge of conspiracy and money laundering.
The three-member panel of the appellate court, in a unanimous judgment on Thursday, November 24, 2022, ruled that Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court, Abuja was right to have convicted Faisal.
The three-member panel however reduced the jail term from 14 years to 7 years, saying the trial court should not have handed a maximum term on the ground that Faisal is a first-time offender.
The Court held that the EFCC successfully established that Faisal, operated a fictitious bank account with the United Bank for Africa, UBA, through which his father, Maina, laundered the sum of N58.1million.
The appellate court noted that the said fund which was deposited into the account that was operated in the name of Alhaji Faisal Farm 2, was sequentially withdrawn by Faisal and his father between October 2013 and June 2019.
Justice Abang who in October 2021, found Faisal guilty on a three-count money laundering charge had said he was satisfied that the EFCC proved all the essential ingredients of the charge, stressing that the defendant reasonably ought to have known that inflows into the bank account formed proceeds of an unlawful act of corruption by his father. The court ordered that the company through which the fund was laundered, Alhaji Faisal Farm 2, be wound up, with funds in it forfeited to the government.
Abdulrasheed Maina, (Faisal Maina’s father) is also currently serving an eight-year jail term at the Kuje prison in Abuja over the laundering of N2 billion pension funds.
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