27th January, 2017
The EFCC investigator identified the senior lawyer as Mr. Rickey Tarfa, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria,.
Tarfa was arraigned before Justice Opesanwo on February 26 last year for allegedly hiding two suspects of financial crimes in his sports utility vehicle on the premises of the Lagos State High Court.
EFCC further claimed that while allegedly hiding the suspects – Gnahouse Nazaire and Senoue Modeste – in his SUV, Tarfa made a phone call to Justice Yunusa of the Federal High Court to pervert the course of justice.
Tarfa however pleaded not guilty to the allegations.
On Thursday, the EFCC sad it has analysed the calls made by Tarfa on his two phones.
The phones were tendered in evidence against the SAN and marked as exhibits P7 and P8 by Justice Opesanwo on Thursday.
Daniel said Tarfa regularly contacted the judge even when he had cases before him.
The witness said, “On February 5, 2016, two phones – a Samsung Galaxy phone and an IPhone – belonging to Tarfa were given to me by the commission to analyse.
“I gave the defendant two telephone forensic forms to fill which he did and appended his signature in my presence.”
The witness added, “Part of the result of the analysis showed that the defendant was in the habit of making his cases go before Justice Yunusa.
“Results confirmed that there were communications between the defendant, his colleagues in the office and staff of the court.
“When cases were pending before Justice Yinusa, particularly in the month of May 2015, a member of staff from the defendant’s office, named Esther, made a cash deposit of N1.5m into Yunusa’s account.”
Daniel said Justice Yunusa did not deny receiving N1.5m from Tarfa Rickey.
The witness said, “Justice Yunusa was invited by the investigators sometime in 2016; he honoured the invitation and was interviewed on the reason for the payment of the N1.5m into his account.
“The judge confirmed that some money was paid into his account but he could not remember when it was paid.
“He went further to put his statement into writing.”