Remember him?He is John Yusuf, the pension thief who five years ago, was given a slap on the wrist by Justice Abubakar Talba of the Federal Capital Territory High Court, for stealing N32.8billion police pension money.

Then, he was sentenced to two years in jail, with the option of paying a fine of N750,000. That judgment triggered national outrage.

But now,The Court of Appeal Abuja Division on Wednesday jailed him six years with a mandate tefund N22.9billion.

The ruling emanated from the appeal by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, filed at the appellate court, on April 26, 2013 .The appeal sought to set aside the judgment of the lower court.

There were five grounds of the appeal,which bordered on the exercise of discretion of the Judge in imposing sentence on the respondent who pleaded guilty to the three count charge, in which he admitted converting an aggregate sum of over N24 billion of Police Pension fund into his personal use.

The EFCC asked the Appeal Court to decide “whether the trial judge exercised his discretion judicially and judiciously when having convicted the respondent of a three count charge of conversion of over N3billion contrary to section 309 of the Penal Code, His Lordship imposed two years imprisonment with an option of fine of N250, 000 on each of the three counts”.

Ruling on the substantive matter, the Justices of the Court of Appeal held unanimously that the three counts involving the respondent (Counts 17, 18 and 19) clearly stated the amounts for which the appellant alleged that the respondent converted for his personal use.It was also held that the respondent pleaded guilty to the three counts and thereby admitted to the conversion of an aggregate sum of about N24billion to his personal use.

The judges ruled that the sentence of the trial court, does not serve as deterrence to both the convict and others. Consequently, they ruled that the sentence is “hereby quashed and deserves to be reviewed as follows: *on Counts 17, the Respondent is hereby sentenced to two years imprisonment with an addition of fine of N20billion Naira; *on Counts 18, the Respondent is hereby sentenced to two years imprisonment with an addition of fine of 1.4billion Naira; *on counts 19, the Respondent is hereby sentenced to two years imprisonment with an addition of fine of 1.5billion Naira”. The prison sentence will run consecutively and the fine is to be cumulative.


https://www.financialdigest.com.ng/blog/2018/03/22/pension-theft-john-yusuf-to-refund-n22-9b-jailed-6-years/