Forensic examiner says court passport was falsified…

A forensic examiner has testified at the Abuja High Court that an international passport submitted in a UK property dispute involving Nigeria’s senior lawyer Mike Ozekhome was forged and never issued by the Nigerian Immigration Service.

Bamaiyi Mairiga, an officer of the Forensic Examination Department of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), appeared as the second prosecution witness.

Mairiga told the court that the data page of the Nigerian International e-Passport bearing the name “Tali Shani” and passport number A07535463 is a forged data page.

“The check digits for the passport number, DOB and DOE of the passport are incorrect and the passport data page has been falsified/forged to reflect the holder as Shani Tali,” it said.

On February 27, the Federation’s Attorney General’s Office charged Ozekhome and Ponca Useni with 12 counts of forgery and identity theft.

The indictment alleges that the defendants conspired in 2020 to create a false Nigerian passport and created a false “irrevocable power of attorney” to help Ozekhome claim property in the United Kingdom.

Both defendants have pleaded not guilty.

-How the exam was carried out-

Mairiga said the EFCC forensic department received the passport data page in February and analyzed it using ICAO procedures:

1. Keesing Technologies Document Checker (KTDC): Verified details of the visual inspection zone.

2. VSC 8000 ICAO OCR E-Passport Checker: verified date of birth, expiration date and passport number.

3. Publishing/manual calculation: letters converted to numbers and check digits recalculated.

He explained that check digits were used by immigration and forensics officers to identify counterfeit or forged pages of data.

-Judicial proceedings-

The Attorney General of the Federation, Rotimi Oyedepo SAN, presented the forensic report as evidence. The defense did not object to the document.

During cross-examination, Ozekhome’s lawyer, Oyetibo SAN, questioned the witness’s training.

Mairiga said he holds a four-year undergraduate degree, two-year mentorship and a one-year postgraduate diploma, with certificates in all courses.

He confirmed that no ink analysis was carried out, as the request was limited to comparing the machine-readable zone with the visual inspection zone.

Justice Chizoba Oji adjourned the case to June 29 for further cross-examination.

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