Magistrate disapproves counsel’s prayer to bar journalist covering firearm possession case

Magistrate I. O. Omotosho of the Igbosere Magistrates’ Court, Lagos, on Thursday declined to grant an oral application to bar Journalists from covering a trial involving illegal possession of firearm. “I refuse to uphold such a prayer to bar journalists from covering this case. “The court is a public place.
“I will not stop journalists from covering court proceedings and I will expect the counsel to the accused to file a formal application in that regard. “I, however, sustain the accused, Sulaiman Sanusi’s, administrative bail as still subsisting and adjourn the case to Oct. 29 for trial,’’ Omotosho said.
The accused, 48, and son of late Lagos-based business mogul, Chief Abdul-Rasak Sanusi, is standing trial on a count of unlawful possession of firearm to which he pleaded not guilty to. Counsel to the accused, Mr Rotimi Seriki, at Thursday’s hearing had urged the court to bar journalists from covering the case, saying “what they report are untrue.“
Seriki said that what journalists were reporting each time the case was adjourned in such manner was embarrassing to the accused. “As am talking, journalists are inside this court and even cameramen are outside waiting to video us.
“The last time when the court did not sit, cameramen came to the court room to video it all the same,” he said.
Seriki also told the court that the accused had been receiving threats. Earlier during the proceedings, the Prosecutor, Insp. Steven Molo, had told the court that the accused committed the alleged offence on Oct. 16, 2014.
He said that the accused, committed the offence at No. 2, Akanni Doherty St., off Oba Akran Road, Ikeja, Lagos.
Molo said that an unregistered locally made gun, measuring 46 inches in length was found in the possession of the accused.
He told the court that the accused could not give satisfactory reason of how he came to be in possession of the gun. According to Molo, the offence contravenes Section 27 (a) Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004 as amended.

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