A Federal High Court sitting in Yenegoa, Balyesa State has convicted three Indian nationals, Sailesh Kumar Singh, (the Captain of the vessel), Chadrashekar Sharma and Ajay Bhatiya, owner of the vessel MT Akshay, (still at large) to fifteen years imprisonment for offenses that borders on oil theft.
The convicts were among twelve suspected oil thieves, including eight other Indians, one Ghanaian and a Nigerian arrested aboard MT Akshay by men of the Joint Task Force, Central Naval Command, Yenegoa in November, 2012 and handed over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for further investigation and prosecution.
After diligent prosecution, the presided over by Justice Lambo Akanbi found the first and the two accused persons alongside the owner of the vessel (who is still at large) guilty on count one which borders on conspiracy and convicted them accordingly.
The other accused persons- Dharmaraj Kumar, Ajay Kumar, Nimesh Kodi Parambil, Ashraf Ali, Sanjeev Kumar, Sarbjot Singh, Arvind Kumar Bhardwaj, Gagan Kumar, Dele Johnson Olayemi and Benneth Egbegi – were discharged and acquitted on the two counts preferred against them by the EFCC.
However, the court was silent on the vessel, and it’s content.
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