A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has denied the bail request of Abba Kyari, the suspended deputy commissioner of police (DCP), for the third time in two years, over drug trafficking.
Kyari was arrested in 2022, after the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), declared him wanted over alleged links to an international drug cartel.
He was arraigned three weeks later alongside other suspects: Sunday Ubia, Bawa James, Simon Agirigba, and John Nuhu, who are members of the police intelligence response team (IRT); a police unit he led.
Others suspects are Chibunna Patrick Umeibe and Emeka Alphonsus Ezenwanne; two suspected drug traffickers who were arrested at Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu.
Kyari and four other defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges brought against them by the NDLEA.
However, Umeibe and Ezenwanne, the sixth and seventh defendants, pleaded guilty and were convicted accordingly.
Since then, the bail applications of the defendants have been rejected.
The presiding judge refused to grant their bail application for the second time after they argued that their lives were being threatened by criminals arrested by Kyari’s team.
The Court of Appeal in Abuja also dismissed Kyari’s appeal for bail.
Recently, the court granted Kyari a two-week bail, to enable him conclude the burial rites of his mother, Yachilla Kyari, who died on May 5.
Kyari had filed another application seeking bail.
He argued before the court, that he had spent two years in pre-trial detention by March 7, which he argued was way the one year specified for “exceptional circumstances” in the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) 2015 — even for a person charged with a capital offence.
He also argued that the court’s previous reason for denying him bail — which was that he may intimidate the witnesses — can no longer stand since 15 of the prosecution’s 16 witnesses have testified.
He further argued that his continued detention violates his fundamental human rights.
The presiding judge, Emeka Nwite, while delivering ruling on Wednesday, over Kyari’s latest bail, held that the defendants had not placed sufficient materials before the court.
Nwite held that the discretion of the court remains throughout a criminal trial, which can always be exercised on the merit of each case.
“The question begging for an answer at this juncture is, having addressed these issues in the court rulings of 28th of March, 2022 and 30th of August, 2022, what has changed to distort my findings in the two rulings?” the judge asked.
The judge said the case should be granted an accelerated hearing.
