Justice Sylvester Ngwuta, a Supreme Court judge in Nigeria, has been charged in court with corruption and money laundering. He was allegedly found with several passports and pleaded not guilty to 15 counts of fraud. He appeared along with seven other judges, who all denied the charges.
The fight against corruption was a campaign pledge of Nigeria’s Muhammadu Buhari who came to power last year.
Justice Ngwuta and his co-defendants were arrested in raids carried out by Nigeria’s security agency which seized $800,000 (£645,200) in cash in raids targeting senior judges suspected of corruption. The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) accused the authorities of carrying out a “Gestapo-style” operation and successfully argued that the judges should be released on bail.
The judicial regulatory body of Nigeria, the National Judicial Council (NJC), suspended the judges pending their trial.
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