IBORI RELEASED, RE-ARRESTED

Former governor of Delta State, James Onanefe Ibori has
completed his prison terms in the United Kingdom. But he is
yet to be a free man, as he was immediately re-arrested.

TheNEWS learnt that Ibori jailed 13 years in April 2012 by a
Southwark Crown court in London was released by prison
authorities on 22 January.

He was released from Her Majesty’s Prison in Bedford,
outside of London, where he finished his prison term. He
was also initially at the Long Lartin Prison in Worcestershire.

“He is out of here”, a prison source at Bedford confirmed on
Tuesday night.

Our sources said Ibori was re-arrested to face another
charge, which borders on the confiscation of his ill-gotten
assets, estimated to be about 250 million pounds. The case
initially billed for May, will now come up in June, sources
told us this afternoon.

We cannot however confirm Ibori’s new prison.
Fifty-seven year old Ibori was jailed for using UK financial
institutions to launder hundreds of millions of pound
sterling he stole from public funds in Delta State.

His journey to jail began with his arrest On 13 May 2010 in
Dubai, United Arab Emirates under Interpol arrest warrants,
issued from United Kingdom courts and enacted by the
Metropolitan Police.

He had earlier made a mockery of Nigeria’s legal system,
walking away free from the multi-billion fraud charge
levelled against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission, including the $15 million bribe he offered the
then EFCC chairman, Nuhu Ribadu.

Ibori’s case and extradition became one of the longest, most
complex and expensive operations mounted by Scotland
Yard in recent years.

Prosecutors alleged that companies owned by Ibori and his
family were beneficiaries from the sale of state assets,
including shares in Econet, a GSM telephone operator, as
well as crude oil deliveries.

Before his conviction, UK juries two years earlier found
James Ibori’s sister, Christine Ibie-Ibori and his mistress,
Udoamaka Okoronkwo, guilty on counts of money
laundering, in a verdict delivered at the Southwark Crown
Court, London.

On 27 February 2012, Ibori himself was docked, accused of
stealing US$250 million from the Nigerian public purse. He
pleaded guilty to ten counts of money laundering and
conspiracy to defraud. Among possessions confiscated were
a house in Hampstead, north London, for £2.2million, a
property in Shaftesbury, Dorset for £311,000, A £3.2m
mansion in Sandton, near Johannesburg South Africa , a
fleet of armoured Range Rovers valued at £600,000,a
£120,000 Bentley Continental GT, A Mercedes-Benz Maybach
bought for €407,000 cash, that was shipped direct to his
mansion in South Africa

After the sentencing hearing, Sue Patten, head of the Crown
Prosecution Service central fraud group, said it would bid to
confiscate the assets Ibori had acquired his riches “at the
expense of the some of the poorest people in the world.

Also jailed with him apart from his sister and mistress were
his wife, Theresa Nkoyo Ibori, his lawyer, Bhadresh Gohil
and his financial advisors, Daniel McCann and Lambertus De
Boer.
While in prison, Ibori continued to exercise a lot of influence
on the politics of his Delta state, with the present governor,
Ifeanyi Okowa, regarded as one of his disciples.

Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan, two term governor of the state,
who succeeded him in 2007 is his uncle.
Born in Oghara, 57 years ago, the young James Onanefe
Ibori was educated at Baptist High school, now Oghareki
Grammar School. From there, he went to the University of
Benin, where he studied economics and statistics. After his
university education, he moved to the United Kingdom,
where he worked at Wickes DIY, married his wife, Theresa
and tainted his record with two convictions for theft and
credit card fraud, that were to later haunt his political career
in Nigeria.

He became governor of Delta state in 1999 and held forte
for eight years.