Appeal Court Affirms Abdulrasheed Maina’s Son’s Conviction For Money Laundering
The Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal has on Thursday upheld the conviction of Faisal Maina, son of the jailed former Chairman of the defunct Pension Reform Taskforce Team (PRTT), Abdulrasheed Maina.
Faisal, who is 22 years old, was on October 7, 2021, convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison by the Federal High Court in Abuja.
The court of appeal held that the trial court was right to have convicted Faisal. The appellate court was of the view that being a first-time offender, the trial court ought not to have handed the convict the maximum punishment under the law.
The convict had approached the court of appeal to register his disagreement with the trial court’s judgment.
According to Justice Okon Abang, Faisal was guilty of all three counts of the charges against him.
Abang sentenced him to a five-year jail term on count one bordering on money laundering offences, and 14 years imprisonment on count two.
The judge, also, sentenced him to five years in prison on count three which bordered on an asset declaration offence.
•Jail term reduces to 7 years
Abang however, ruled that the prison terms would run concurrently.
Abang said the EFCC proved beyond reasonable doubt that Faisal operated a fictitious bank account with the United Bank for Africa (UBA), through which his father, Mr Maina, laundered the sum of N58.1 million.
The court noted that the funds deposited into the account that was operated in the name of Alhaji Faisal Farm 2 were sequentially withdrawn by the convict and his father, between October 2013 and June 2019.
