The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, yesterday, rejected an application the detained Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari, filed to quash the drug trafficking charge the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, preferred against him.
The court in a ruling delivered by trial Justice Emeka Nwite, said it found no reason to discontinue hearing on how Kyari who hitherto headed the Police Intelligence Response Team, IRT, and four other police officers, allegedly tampered with the cocaine seized from two convicted drug peddlers— Chibunna Patrick Umeibe and Emeka Alphonsus Ezenwanne.
Justice Nwite dismissed as lacking in merit, a preliminary objection the embattled DCP filed to challenge the legal competence of the charge, which he said the court lacked the requisite jurisdiction to entertain.
The trial judge held that the court was adequately empowered by Section 251 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, to hear drug-related offences brought under the NDLEA Act.
He dismissed Kyari’s contention that the NDLEA ought to have allowed Police to exhaust its internal investigative/disciplinary mechanisms, before it instituted the court action.
Kyari is answering to an eight-count charge the NDLEA entered against him and four members of his IRT team; ACP Sunday J. Ubia, ASP Bawa James, Inspector Simon Agirigba and Inspector John Nuhu.
He had through his lawyer, Mr. Nureni Jimoh, SAN, maintained that the charge against him was legally defective.
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