...... adjourn hearing to January
By Editor
The Federal High Court in Kano has rejected some documents tendered as exhibits by the defence counsel in the case of cyber crime instituted against the purported Katsina whistle blower, Mahadi Shehu by the Inspector General of Police.
The court dismissed the photocopied memos when the prosecution first witness, the former Secretary to Katsina State Government, Dr Mustapha Muhammad Inuwa denied the genuineness of the signatures on the papers which the defence counsel claimed to be his' during the cross-examination.
Similarly, the court also refused as exhibit the letterhead paper of a private company carrying the name of Mustapha Inuwa as a director in the company which the judge described as irrelevant and without merit to the matter before the court.
It will be recalled that the Inspector-General of Police, IGP arraigned Mahdi Shehu before the court for alleged forgery, incitement and disparagement of the state government and its officials, using various media platforms on the internet, an allegation Mahadi had since denied after he was arrested and charged to court.
At the proceedings today, the presiding judge, Justice A.M Liman, while cautioning the defence counsel to abide by the court rules, declared all the documents sought to be tendered by the defence counsel, A.I Abubakar as not admissable.
Justice Liman said: "for the court to accept any public document as exhibit, it must be a certified true copy."
Dr Mustapha Inuwa while being questioned by Mahadi's lawyer for the third adjourned dates, was presented with a volume of photocopied documents carrying his purported signatures which he told the court that he could not ascertain them unless he sees the original copies, therefore disassociating himself from all the documents presented to him by the defence counsel while being cross-examined.
After Inuwa's cross-examination was closed by the counsel, Justice Liman obliged the prosecution counsel Barrister Simon Lough to call his second witness, Abdullahi Aliyu Yar'adua, the Director of Press, Office of the Secretary to Katsina State Government.
But Mahadi's lawyer raised an objection while Yar'adua's evidence is being taken, arguing that he was just served that morning with additional transcriptions of translated documents on the alleged episode of Mahadi's Radio programme without the copies of the CDs which the prosecution intended to tender through the witness.
He therefore, appealed for time to study the documents and the prosecution and properly be served with the said CDs.
In response, the judge granted his plea and adjourned the case to 25th and 26th January, 2023 for continuation of hearings.
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