By Uche Bibilari
An Upper Area Court in Gwagwalada, FCT, has ordered the Gwagwalada Area Police Command to thoroughly investigate an alleged case of defamation of character and report its findings to court.
The Judge, Sani Umar, gave the order in a ruling on an application by Mr C.L. Obehi-Abel, the defence counsel to one Iliya Abdullahi, being tried for alleged defamation of character case before the court.
The complainant, Muhammad Shehu, a businessman, who resides in New Kutunku Gwagwalada, Abuja, had instituted the criminal case of alleged defamation of character case against the defendant.
But Obehi-Abel argued that the police ought to have first thoroughly investigated the authenticity or otherwise of the allegation before bringing filing criminal case against his client.
Obehi-Abel cited Section 89 (5) of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA), 2015 to support his argument, since his client had denied liability of the alleged offence .
Consequently, the Judge, acquiesced to the defence counsel’s submission and plea and ordered the police to thoroughly investigate the allegations and submit its findings to the court on Nov.10.
Earlier, the complainant told the court that he had acquired a landed property documents from the Head of Department (HOD) Land, Gwagwalada Area Council through an agent , one Auwalu.
Shehu told the court that he sold part of the acquired properties using the said documents to one Mai Gwanjo for N500,000, for which he was paid N380,000 as first instalment.
The complainant, however, alleged that the defendant had called him to accuse him of using fake land documents to sell land to unsuspecting victims.
He further alleged that the defendant had also gone ahead to spread the news that he was selling landed property with fake documents to unsuspecting customers…
Shehu had filed the criminal charge in court, seeking the conviction of the defendant for alleged defamation of character, which offends the provision of Section 391 of the Penal Code. (NAN)
