BY MAYOWA SAMUEL
A Nigerian has had the jail sentence for his part in a graft case involving Eni and Shell in Nigeria overturned by an Italian appeal court on Thursday.
The judgement, delivered behind closed doors, affirmed that Obi, alongside an Italian Gianluca Di Nardo, had no case to answer, Reuters report.
The three judges, who arrived at the decision, quashed the charges against the pair and the companies involved.
In March, a court had acquitted the two energy firms in a case regarding the acquisition of Nigerian oilfield for about $1.3 billion (N504.4 bn), hence, the prosecution prayed the court for the overturning of the sentences.
Both men alleged to have been middlemen who received illegal kickbacks were in 2018 convicted and sentenced to a four-year-jail-term in a fast-track trial but hadn’t started serving their term.
A fast-track trial under the Italian law is based only on documents with no hearings or witnesses and permits that the sentence can be cut by a third.
Obi’s lawyer, Roberto Pisano, in reference to the original conviction stated that it was “An unjust sentence by the court of first instance conditioned by a macroscopic violation of the law.”
The Italian Ministry of Justice had earlier in the month directed that an inquiry be made into the conduct of both prosecutors (Eni and Shell) in the main case.
The jury also ordered the lifting of the seized assets worth $98.4 million (N38 bn) from Obi and more than 21 million Swiss (N8.8 bn) francs from Di Nardo.
