The trial of music artiste, Azeez Fashola who is popularly known as Naira Marley, on an 11-count charge of conspiracy, possession of counterfeit cards, and fraud, continued today with the court admitting more evidence.
Trial judge, Justice Nicholas Oweibo of the Federal High Court, Lagos admitted a C.D containing the phone analysis of the embattled singer.
The CD had been tendered in evidence at a previous proceeding by Anosike Augustine, a mobile forensic expert with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Anosike who is the second prosecution witness in the EFCC had told the court that how he analyzed the contents of the iPhone 11 allegedly retrieved from Naira Marley during an investigation.
Counsel to Naira Marley, Olalekan Ojo, SAN had objected to the admissibility of the evidence.
In his ruling delivered this morning, Justice Oweibo overruled the objections of the counsel and admitted the C.D in evidence.
The judge said, ” l have considered the agreement of both parties as well as the ground for the objection, I consider the C.D to be admissible in view of the nature of this case and the evidence of other prosecution witnesses.
Accordingly, it is hereby admitted in evidence and marked exhibit F.
The trial of the case could however not go on after the ruling as the defence counsel, Olalekan Ojo was not in court.
He had sent in his apologies and sought for an adjournment which was not opposed by the EFCC’s counsel Bilkisu Buhari.
Justice Oweibo adjourned to the 8th and 11th of March, for the continuation of the trial.
He said after extracting and analyzing the data on the phone, he produced a report of his findings.
The EFCC subsequently moved to tender in evidence the report which was said to be over 30 pages long. But Counsel to Naira Marley, Olalekan Ojo, SAN, objected to the tendering of the document. He argued that it was not part of the documents front-loaded to the defense team and he was unaware of its contents.
Following the EFCC’s insistence that the document had been frontloaded, Justice Oweibo adjourned till tomorrow, Friday, Feb. 28 to allow the parties to sort out and reconcile whether the report was front-loaded or not.
