How UK helps us seize looted assets —FG

The Federal Government has given an insight into how it gets the assistance of the United Kingdom to seize properties and other assets linked to funds allegedly stolen from the Nigerian treasury.

It said under the existing mutual legal assistance agreement and treaties, the UK also “helps us to prosecute suspects who commit crimes against Nigeria.”

Nigeria also offered such legal assistance to the UK when faced with such request, the Federal Government stated in a court paper filed before the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory in Abuja.

Properties linked to the immediate-past Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke in the UK have been seized by the foreign country’s court under the existing mutual assistance laws.

 Diezani has, since 2015, been under criminal investigation in the UK for alleged offences including money laundering which she was accused of committing while in office as a Nigerian minister.

The Federal Government detailed how the mutual legal agreement laws worked in its response to an application raised by an alleged Diezani’s ally, Benedict Peters,  challenging the seizure of some foreign and Nigerian-based properties linked to the ex-minister

The orders for interim forfeiture of the properties on the account of the ongoing investigation of Diezani were made on April 13 and 29, 2016 by the Federal High Court in Abuja and on October 19, 2017, by the Crown Court in Southwark, UK.

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The interim forfeiture orders prohibited the disposal of the assets in Nigeria and in the UK pending the conclusion of ongoing investigations into allegations against the ex-minister, on whose behalf investigators believed Peters and his companies acted.

But Peters and three of his companies – Collinwood Limited, Rosewood Investment Limited and Walworth Properties – had, on December 29, 2017, filed the suit marked, FCT/HC/CV/0536/17, seeking to set aside the orders of interim forfeiture in respect to some of the seized properties.

The plaintiffs, in urging the FCT High Court to set aside the interim orders of forfeiture, claimed that some of the properties seized by the Nigerian and UK courts belonged to them and not Diezani.