SON of the former Chairman of the defunct Pension Reform Taskforce Team Abdulrasheed Maina has been sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Faisal Adulrasheed was sentenced by a Federal High Court in Abuja in absentia on Thursday.
The court presided over by Okon Abang found guilty on a three-count money laundering charge preferred against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
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According to the News Agency of Nigeria, the court ruled 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.
It noted that the fund which was deposited into the account that was operated in the name of Alhaji Faisal Farm 2, was sequentially withdrawn by the defendant and his father, between October 2013 and June 2019.
The judge argued that the Faisal ought to have known that inflows into the bank account formed proceeds of his father’s unlawful act of corruption.
While the court sentenced the defendant to 5 years in count 1 and 3 of the charge, he was sentenced to 14 years on count 2 of the charge.
The court held that the charge would run concurrently, starting from Thursday.
The court ordered that the 21-year-old Faisal, who had since June 24, 2020, failed to appear for his trial, should be arrested anywhere he is found in Nigeria and remanded in any Correctional Service Center to serve his jail term immediately.
It further held that if he is traced to anywhere outside the country, the Federal Government should legally or lawfully commence extradition process to bring him into the country to serve the jail term”.
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.
The EFCC had alleged that Maina’s son had some time between 2013 and 2019, received the sum of N58.11million, being proceeds of a corrupt act by his father, who is also standing corruption trial.
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