The Supreme Court has fixed March 12, 2021, to deliver judgment on the appeal by former Plateau State Governor, Senator Joshua Dariye.
Bibian Anekwe News reports that the Supreme Court fixed the date on Thursday after listening to the final submission from lawyers representing parties.
Former governor, Dariye, is asking the Apex Court to strike out the November 16, 2018, ruling of the Appeal Court which sentenced him to 10 years for diverting public funds estimated at N1.162billion while he was the governor.
Recall that a three-man panel led by Justice Stephen Adah had upheld an earlier judgment by Justice Adebukola Banjoko of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), delivered on June 12, 2018.
Dariye was first sentenced to 14 years imprisonment without fine by Justice Banjoko, on June 12, 2018 after he was found guilty on a 6-count charge on the allegation of unlawful transferring of funds to the sum of N1.126 billion ecological needs of the state to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the southwest.
But the Appeal Court ruled that the maximum sentence of 14 years was excessive especially because the former governor was a first-time offender.
The Appeal Court said the lower court erred in law when it sentenced Dariye excessively but it upheld that Dariye was guilty and the conviction, correct.
The 14 years sentence for breach of trust was reduced to 10 years and the conviction for the diversion of fund was reduced from two years to one.
