Prague, Aug 29 (CTK) – Businessman Hima Aboubakar from Niger can again freely handle the three flats he owns in Prague, which the Czech police sealed at the beginning of the year over his suspected overpriced arms purchases for the military in Nigeria, daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) writes today.
Nigeria, which asked for the sealing of the flats worth about 50 million crowns, refused to take them over, the paper writes.
Neither the Czech Supreme State Attorney’s Office nor the Czech police centre fighting organised crime (NCOZ) were willing to comment on the case, MfD writes.
According to the rules of international judicial cooperation, the Nigerian prosecutors was obliged to send a report on the charges filed against Aboubakar to Prague. This has not happened, however, and the Czech authorities had to unseal the flats, the paper writes.
As managing director of the Societe D’Equipments Internationaux (SEI) arms trader, Aboubakar secured arms deliveries for the Nigerian army that has been fighting Islamist terrorists from the Boko Haram movement. It allegedly turned out last year that some of the money was sent from Nigeria to accounts of private firms, but no military materiel was supplied. The charged in the case include a former defence minister and a security adviser to the Nigerian president.
Aboubakar is suspected of causing damage of $2.2 billion in Nigeria, according to a Czech police document.
According to the presidential commission’s conclusions, Nigeria earmarked $2.1 billion for defence in 2007-15. Out of the total, the Nigerian air force paid $930.5 million to SEI. It signed ten contracts with it from January 2014 to February 2015. According to the audit, the contract for the purchase of two used helicopters for almost $137 million was largely overpriced. The supplied helicopters were not capable of flying. A new helicopter of the same type costs $30 million.
($1=21.887 crowns)
