THE Police Service Commission (PSC) says it has deferred its decision on the case of former officer in charge of the Inspector General of Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT) Abba Kyari.
This was disclosed in a statement released by the Commission on Friday.
According to the statement, the PSC reached the decision at its just-concluded 14th Plenary Meeting chaired by the chairman Musiliu Smith in Abuja, due to the need for further investigations.
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“The Commission also directed that further necessary investigation should take half the time it took the Police to conduct the original investigation and that the investigation should be carried out by a different panel,” the statement said.
Kyari was indicted by a report of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) during the trial of a Nigerian fraudster, Ramoni Abbas, popularly known as Hushpuppi.
Kyari’s indictment followed a warrant of arrest issued by a judge in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, Otis Wright, in July, to provide the accused to answer questions over alleged bribery.
The report indicted Kyari of receiving the sum of N8 million from Abbas to facilitate the arrest of his adversary Vincent Chibuzo following a dispute over a $1.1 million fraud against a Qatari businessperson.
Nigeria’s Inspector General of Police Alkali Usman Baba had set up a Special Investigation Panel (SIP) headed by Deputy Inspector General of Police in charge of the Force Criminal Investigations Department (FCID) Joseph Egbunike to investigate the matter.
The panel had come up with a report six months after the indictment, which was rejected by the PSC.
The Commission returned the findings to the IGP for further investigations on specific charges pointed out by the FBI.
Though his fate remains unknown, Attorney-General of Federation Abubakar Malami had said earlier this week that the Nigerian government might extradite Kyari to the United States to face trial over his involvement with Abbas.
Ijeoma Opara is a journalist with The ICIR. Reach her via [email protected] or @ije_le on Twitter.