The Federal Government has arraigned Justice Sylvester Ngwuta of the Supreme Court over alleged money laundering.
Justice Ngwuta was among the top judges across the Nigerian courts who were arrested by men of the Department of State Services recently over sundry allegations of corruption.
Justice Ngwuta pleaded not guilty to all the 16 counts read to him.
The DSS accused Ngwuta of transferring total sum of N505m “denominated in naira and US dollars” to a building contractor, Nwamba Linus Chukwuebuka, between January and May 2016.
The N505m was alleged to be part of proceeds of Ngwuta’s “unlawful” activities.
He was also accused of instructing a relative to remove some exotic cars from his house in Ebonyi while he was under investigation in violation of the provisions of section 18(1)(b) of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Act.
The DSS accused him of retaining huge sums of money in local and foreign currencies which were alleged to be proceeds of his unlawful act contrary to the provisions of the Money Laundering Act.
The prosecution also accused of Ngwuta of concealing the origin of sums of money which were said to have been found at his home during the raid on his house by the operatives of the DSS between October 7 and 8.
Ngwuta was accused of passport offences in counts eight to 14 of the amended charges.
He was accused of being in possession of two valid Diplomatic Passports and another two valid Standard Nigerian Passports, when his house was raided by DSS operatives on October 8, 2016.
According to the prosecution, Ngwuta submitted multiple applications, made false information of loss of the passports and of his age with intention to obtain multiple of the passports in violation of various provisions of the Immigration Act 2015.
