A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, on Tuesday, admitted telephone conversations and text messages call logs, allegedly exchanged between Senator Ali Ndume and the Chief Spokesman of the Boko Haram sect Ali Konduga in evidence.
The call logs and SMS messages tagged “primary evidence” were tendered by a Prosecution Witness in the ongoing trial of Senator Ndume, for allegedly sponsoring terrorism and same was admitted by Justice Gabriel Kolawole.
The witness told the court that the call logs and text messages were obtained from two telephones belonging to Senator Ndume and Konduga and were processed by a forensic examiner from the department of the State Security Service (SSS), Mr Aliu Usman.
Counsel to the embattled Senator Ndume, Rickey Tarfa (SAN), vehemently prayed the court not to admit the documentary evidence against his client.
His ground of objection was that the SSS operative who prepared the documentary evidence as a forensic examiner from SSS, did not disclose his qualification to court, to determine his status
He argued that the failure of the expert to back up his claim with requisite qualification as demanded by law, was fatal to admissibility of the documentary evidence.
Besides, Tarfa argued that the telephone conversations and the SMS messages documented in a bounded report were not certified as required by section 102 of the Evidence Act.
He further argued that before such a document from a public officer could be admitted in evidence by a law court, it must be certified by the appropriate authority.
He, therefore, asked Justice Kolawole to throw out the document, for not being admissible in law.
Prosecution Counsel, Thompson Olatigbe, however, asked the court to dismiss the objection on the ground that it was prepared by the witness and signed as his own report of the forensic examination carried out on the telephones of Senator Ndume and Konduga.
He told the court that the SSS operative, had earlier introduced himself as a forensic examiner and would not have been employed by SSS if he was not qualified.
In his ruling, Justice Kolawole agreed that the failure of the SSS operative to establish his qualification was fatal to the case of the prosecution.
The court, however, agreed that the document did not fall among the public documents that must be certified before it can be admitted in law.
The Judge also held that the witness never claimed that he generated the contents of the report from computer as claimed by the defence lawyer.
The court said that probate value to be attached to the report would be determined in the course of trial since the witness did not disclose his qualification.
Further hearing continues today.
-Tribune