The former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), will remain in prison custody till Wednesday when his request for bail will be considered by the Federal High Court in Abuja. Malami, who served as Justice Minister from November 11, 2015, to May 29, 2023, under former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, is facing a 16-count money laundering charge.

He was arraigned before the court last Tuesday alongside his son, Abdulaziz, and Bashir Asabe, an employee of Rahamaniyya Properties Limited, a firm allegedly used to conceal proceeds of unlawful activity through property deals. The defendants were alleged to have laundered public funds totalling about N9 billion.

According to the anti-graft agency, the former Justice Minister, in a bid to hide his proceeds of crime, resorted to acquiring choice properties in various cities and states, including Abuja, Kebbi, and Kano. EFCC told the court that the defendants had, between July 2022 and June 2025, used a firm, Metropolitan Auto Tech Limited, to conceal over N1.01 billion in a Sterling Bank account.

They were further accused of using the same company to siphon about N600 million between September 2020 and February 2021. Likewise, EFCC told the court that the defendants had retained N600 million in March 2021 as cash collateral for a N500 million loan that the firm, Rayhaan Hotels Ltd, obtained from Sterling Bank, despite allegedly knowing that the funds were proceeds of crime.

The defendants were said to have acted in breach of several provisions of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011. Among those billed to testify against them were investigators, bank officials, real estate agents, as well as Bureau de Change operators.

The court, upon the defendants’ plea of innocence, had remanded them in prison custody pending the determination of their bail applications. At the resumed proceedings on Friday, counsel to the defendants, J. B. Daudu, (SAN), prayed the court to release his clients from custody, saying that the allegations against them were bailable. He assured the court of the defendants’ readiness to stand trial to clear their names.

However, the EFCC, through its team of lawyers led by Ekele Iheanacho (SAN), urged the court to deny the defendants bail. Aside from the defendants posing a flight risk, the antigraft agency alleged that the former minister has the capacity to influence some of the witnesses, who are scheduled to testify against him.

After he had listened to both sides, Justice Emeka Nwite adjourned the matter until Wednesday for ruling. It will be recalled that Malami was detained by the EFCC on December 8, 2025, after honouring an invitation extended to him by the agency.

He later accused the agency of arbitrarily revoking an administrative bail it had earlier granted to him. The embattled former AGF insisted that the revocation came after he attended a political rally in his home state, Kebbi, a development he described as a pointer to the fact that his trial was politically motivated.

Meanwhile, some of the counts in the charge against the defendants, read: “That you Abubakar Malami (SAN), and Abubakar Abdulaziz Malami, between July, 2022 and June, 2025 in Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court did procure Metropolitan Auto Tech Limited to conceal the unlawful origin of the total sum of

N1, 014, 848, 500.00 (One Billion, Fourteen Million, Eight Hundred and Forty Eight Thousand, Five Hundred Naira) in the Sterling Bank Plc Account No. 0079182387 when you reasonably ought to have known that the said sum formed proceeds of unlawful activities and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 21(c) of the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act 2022 and punishable under Section 18(3) of the same Act.