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A retired Nigerian General and politician said to be corrupt dictator Sani Abacha’s right-hand man has failed in his bid to have his legal expenses paid from the £2m seized off him last year.
Last May, the Royal Court ruled that Jersey-based accounts opened by Jeremiah Timbut Useni were created to hold, hide and conceal bribes or other proceeds of corruption received by Useni during the period he held office.
Most of the £1.9m of dirty money was transferred to the Criminal Offences Confiscation Fund, with £45,000 set aside to pay the legal costs of Standard Chartered Bank, where the money had been held in four accounts set up using a fake name.
An appeal by Useni last September was rejected, but the court then received a number of applications for orders arising from the judgment.
Ruling on those applications, the Court of Appeal recently rejected an application from the former senior army officer for an order releasing forfeited funds to meet his appeal expenses.
The Court also refused Useni’s application for an order that any award of costs against him be met from the seized funds.
It said: “We decline the Appellant’s [Useni’s] invitation to make an order that the costs be met from the forfeited funds.
“It follows from our decision dismissing the appeal against the Forfeiture Order [rejected in September] that we must proceed on the basis that the forfeited funds were the proceeds of, or instrumental in, criminality.
“They have properly been forfeited to public use in accordance with the 2018 Law.
“To order that the costs should be taken from the forfeited funds rather than be the subject of an award against the Appellant personally would, in effect, free him from his liability for costs and, contrary to the purpose of the 2018 Law, give him the benefit of forfeited funds to meet those costs.
“It would enrich the Appellant at the expense of the public purposes to which that element of the forfeited funds would otherwise be dedicated.
“That would not in our view be an appropriate or just order.
“Any practical or legal difficulties which the Attorney General might face in enforcing an award of costs against the Appellant in Nigeria or otherwise are for him to address if he can.”
The Court of Appeal also refused Useni’s application to appeal against the confiscation to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
In a further blow to the Nigerian, the appeal judges – with Clare Montgomery KC presiding, sitting with Jonathan Crow KC and James Wolffe KC - granted an application by Attorney General Mark Temple for costs against Useni which the prosecutor had incurred fighting the appeal.
The judges also granted an application from Standard Chartered Bank for costs against Useni but they rejected an argument that this money should come out of the forfeited funds.
The Court said: “The practical effect of such an order would be to give the Appellant [Useni] the benefit of the forfeited funds, by using them to discharge his liability for the bank’s costs.
“It would also deprive the fund of monies which would otherwise be applied to the public purposes […].”
They added: “We recognise that the bank has been put to cost in participating in proceedings in which its interest may be regarded as formal.
“However, that does not, in our view, justify making a non-party costs order that the bank’s costs be met from the fund.
“The bank chose to accept the Appellant as its customer. It accepted the forfeited funds into the accounts in the circumstances […].
“It does not appear to us, in these circumstances, to be unjust that the bank, like the Attorney General, should be required to enforce the costs order which we have made in its favour against its former customer if it can.”
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