A Crown Magistrate court sitting in London has acceded to the request of the United Kingdom government to confiscate cash seized from the immediate past Minister for Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke.
Acting through the country’s National Crime Agency (NCA) the British government on Monday also sought and got approval of the court to apply the same measures to the other four suspects arrested alongside the former minister last week.
Alison-Madueke and the others were briefly detained on Friday by the agency on allegations of bribery and money laundering and sources told THE NEW DIPLOMAT that a two pronged investigations into her activities as minister is being carried out by the Federal Government and its British counterpart.
The identities of the other four people arrested along with her remain unknown but it is believed that they will also suffer the same fate with the former minister who is said to be undergoing trial in London.
She had been fingered in series of official sleaze that characterised her regime in the ministry, a situation that prompted President Muhammadu Buhari to state last month that those who misappropriated funds belonging to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) would soon be prosecuted.
At the resumed hearing of the trial on Monday, the UK Government told the Westminster Magistrates Court and was approved under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
Indications have also emerged suggesting that the two governments of Nigeria and the UK have begun investigations into her activities in office.
Investigations have begun in UK about two years ago by NCA who had adopted a convert strategy in a way not to ruffle the existing diplomatic relations between the two countries under the government of Goodluck Jonathan.
UK government had to move with her arrest and those of others last week, even though a comprehensive probe had been conducted into her real estate acquisitions in the UK in the past.
However on Monday, the Court said no formal charges have been filed against Deziani and the others who are yet to be identified publicly.
The former Minister and others, who were all granted bail, were not in court during the filing.
