The alleged fraud trial of the Nigerian music star, Azeez Fashola, popularly known as Naira Marley, continued on Tuesday at a Federal High Court in Lagos.
The last hearing was on July 13 before the judge, Nicholas Oweibo, adjourned the case because of the court’s annual vacation, which began on July 26 and ended on September 17 (53 days).
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arrested Naira Marley, Zlatan, four others in May 2019 in connection with an alleged case of internet fraud and money laundering.
The controversial artiste was arraigned on May 20, 2019, but pleaded not guilty and was granted bail.
The anti-graft agency, EFCC, alleged that some of the credit cards discovered in his residence bore the names Nicole Louise Malyon and Timea Fedorne Tatar.
The second prosecution witness, who began his testimony shortly before the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, continued his evidence on Tuesday.
The court was informed that a total of 2410 messages was analysed from the controversial singer’s phone.
A second prosecution witness, Augustine Anosike, narrated how the messages as well as different credit card numbers were extracted from the singer’s phone.
Led in evidence by the prosecutor, Rotimi Oyedepo, who examined him on Exhibit F, the witness first confirmed to the court that the said Exhibit F was a conclusion of his analysis of the defendant’s iPhone.
He told the court that the device analysed is an iPhone X version 10.6, Model A 1901, with number 07427343432 and an email: naimarley@icloud.com.
The witness also gave the IMEL number of the phone as : 35304509527532 as well as the SIM ICCID number as 8923420035948359826.
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According to him, an iPhone is a sophisticated device capable of storing a large volume of information, adding that it is the sim card that basically identifies users of applications like WhatsApp.
He, however, told the court that so far as a number has already been registered with a particular WhatsApp account, it matters less if such a user leaves the country.
The witness noted that there are cases where a WhatsApp application can still be used even though the registered sim card is not inserted in the phone, adding that the chatting app used in the analysed device was WhatsApp.
He told the court that from the iPhone analysed, they discovered a total of 977 Short Message Service (SMS) and 1433 chat messages, adding that there were also seven pending status update messages.
