Detained former governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai, has told a Federal High Court that the three counts charge of intercepting phone communications of the National Security Adviser, NSA, Nuhu Ribadu, filed against him by the Department of State Services, DSS, is not known to any law.
El-rufai, who is demanding N2billion as cost of the suit, is further asking the court to strike out the charge for failing to dosclose any offence known to the law and for equally failing to establish a prima face case to warrant his prosecution.
He will be arraigned today in court.
According to him, the charge constitutes a reckless, and unconstitutional misuse of the criminal justice system to harass, embarrass, and publicly victimise him.
In the application through his team of lawyers led by Mr. Oluwole Iyamu, el-Rufai argued that the DSS has no legal backing to elevate a “casual remark” he made during a television interview to “a confession” that he had indeed tapped the NSA’s telephone line as alleged.
READ ALSO: APC faults Ogharefe Council Of Chiefs, elders over Ethiope West Congress allegations
He argued that the statement he made on Arise TV did not constitute a confessional statement in law, saying for a statement to be admissible as a confession, “it must be made under caution, voluntarily, and in circumstances that satisfy the Judges’ Rules.”
El-Rufai maintained that statements he made in the course of his television interview were “without any caution or warning, in a voluntary public discussion and without the protections afforded to suspects in custody.
“A casual remark in a television programme cannot be elevated to a judicial confession,” he further argued.
He also queried the competence of the charge on the ground that it contained a “non-legal terminology.”
He drew the attention of the court to the use of the word “cohorts” in Count-1 of the charge, saying it demonstrated “a fundamental lack of understanding of criminal pleading.”
