Court adjourns Naira Marley’s trial till June 1

Naira Marley

Justice Nicholas Oweibo of the Federal High Court Lagos Division has adjourned the trial of Naira Marley till June 1.

The trial on Thursday continued with the defence continued Thursday, with the defence concluding the cross-examination of the second prosecution witness.

The second prosecution witness, Augustine Anosike, a forensic analyst, began evidence in 2021.

During the cross-examination, defence counsel, Olalekan Ojo (SAN), asked the witness what he understood by “to authorise a text or WhatsApp message”.

In response, the witness told the court that in his opinion, authorship referred to the producer or maker of the text.

On whether he confirms if the messages extracted from Fashola’s phone were products of human activities, he said, “I cannot tell because I am not in possession of the gadgets that transferred the messages.”

According to him, since the gadgets used for sending and receiving messages belonged to a human, that human is supposed to know how the messages emerged.

Defence counsel also asked the witness if he indicated in his report that the name Azeez Fashola was the sender of any of the messages.

The witness attempted to state that the defendant had other names saved on his phone, but defence counsel asked him to answer the question directly.

In response, the witness replied, “I cannot remember.”

Naira Marley born Azeez Fashola is being tried on 11 counts bordering on conspiracy, possession of counterfeit credit cards and fraud.