A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Friday discharged and acquitted two Lebanese businessmen, Mustapha Fawaz and Abdallah Thahini, owners of popular Amigo Supermarket, Abuja, from the16-count charge filed against them by the Federal Government.
The third accused person, Talal Ahmad Roda, also a Lebanese, however bagged a life sentence, having been found guilty of conspiracy.
The court ordered the State Security Service (SSS) to re-open Amigo supermarket and Wonderland Amusement Park, saying no concrete evidence was established linking both businesses to terrorism.
Justice Adeniyi Ademola said the prosecution failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the discharged persons had links with terrorists.
The judge opined that the laws of Nigeria has not established that Hezbollah, the Lebanese political party, is a terrorist organisation. According to the judge, his court could therefore not hold a contrary view.
Justice Ademola, while reviewing all the 16 charges preferred against the trio, found Roda culpable on Counts 8 and 9 which bothered on conspiracy.
The trial judge faulted aspects of the investigations were shady. He chided the prosecution for failing to produce sufficient evidence to convince the court that the accused were terrorists.
The court said the ammunition seized from No 3 Gaiya Road, Kano, should have been brought to the court. Alternatively, the judge added, the photographer who shot the pictures depicting the cache of arms, should have been brought to court.
He stressed that the prosecutor should have applied to move the court to Kano, where the crime was allegedly committed.
Failure to do such, held the judge, made the evidence tendered by the SSS inadmissible.
The judge also noted that the confession of the SSS witness that he was neither a forensic nor a ballistic expert greatly weakened their prosecution.
Sensing that the court was about to sentence his clients, counsel to the accused persons, Ahmed Raji, SAN, prayed the judge to temper justice with mercy.
He drew the court’s attention to the cooperation his clients extended the prosecutors, and the fact that they had led a considerable part of their lives in Nigeria.
However, the prosecution counsel, Simon Egede, held that while he agreed with the defence counsel, the law must take its course.
After rising for about 45 minutes, Justice Ademola returned to hand the sentence.
He held that the charge under which Roda was convicted provided for life imprisonment and the court had no discretion to alter it.
He declared: “I have listened to the allocutus of the defence counsel on the issue of sentencing. After I have read one or two authorities as to the provision where the accused was charged, it does not give room for judicial discretion.
“I thereby sentence the third accused person to life imprisonment on Count 8 and 9 and both terms are to run concurrently.”
Apart from ordering the re-opening of Amigo and Wonderland park, the judge added that the $61,170 seized from the 2nd accused be returned to him and that all other personal properties seized from the discharged persons and their relatives be returned to them immediately.
The Federal government had on July 29 arraigned the accused persons for terrorism over links with Hezbollah.