In order to decide whether or not to overturn an earlier order requiring the release of David Ukpo’s biographical information to a London Court, Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja, has postponed the decision until December 5.
Yesterday, Justice Ekwo delivered the announcement immediately after Ike Ekweremadu and Ukpo, the attorneys representing the jailed former Deputy Senate President, had finished their justifications for stopping the release.
Ekweremadu and his wife Beatrice are currently on trial in London for allegedly smuggling a minor named Ukpo into the country in order to harvest his organs.
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To prove that the purported victim was not a youngster as claimed, they pleaded guilty to the crime and asked the Federal High for an order for relevant agencies to produce records including his biodata.
The former Deputy Senate President is still being held in custody due to the seriousness of the alleged offense, despite Mrs. Ekweremadu having already been admitted to bail by the London Court hearing the case.
The court had ordered on July 1 and 6 that the required records be disclosed to the UK authorities in response to the application.
However, Ukpo had asked the court to overturn the ruling from July 1 that had allowed the publication of his personal information and biographical information to the Uxbridge Magistrate Court and the Central Criminal Court of the United Kingdom without his agreement.
He said that the documents that were released to the UK Court were fake and that all of the proceedings that resulted in the court’s order were conducted without his presence.
Igbinedion told the court that Ukpo should have been added as a mandatory or necessary party since the bio-data information, bank mandate card and account opening package, application form for international passport, and bank verification information were the focus of the initial motion filed by Ekweremadu and his wife.
He asserted that the court’s order was detrimental to Ukpo while also asserting that the Attorney General of the Federation lacks the legal authority to send a person’s private information to a foreign country.
He then pleaded with the court to overturn its decision allowing the release of his biodata to Ekweremadu and his wife so they may defend themselves in London’s Uxbridge Magistrate Court.
In his objection, Ekweremadu asked the court to reject Ukpo’s lawsuit attempting to halt the delivery of his bio-data to the London Court through his attorney, Eyitayo Fatogun (SAN).
He testified before the court that Ukpo had no reason to be concerned about the disclosure of the details of his visa application and the package he received to create a bank account, unless he had lied about his age.
Bright, Ekweremadu’s immediate younger brother refuted in a counter-affidavit that he had requested Ukpo’s bio-data, claiming that the Federal High Court had only ordered the release of Ukpo’s bank account opening documents and the data included in his visa application request.
However, the senior attorney claimed that based on the court’s order from July 1, 2022, the necessary paperwork have since been sent to two other courts in the United Kingdom.
The senator argued that it was already too late for Ukpo to ask for the reversal of a lawful order that had been made to ascertain solely his true age, and he pleaded with the court to reject the case as frivolous, an abuse of discretion, and without merit because it had been trumped by events.
