An Italian court has sentenced two Milan prosecutors – Fabio De Pasquale and Sergio Spadaro – to eight months in prison for failing to file documents that would have supported energy group Eni’s position in the trial of Shell and Eni over the Oil Prospecting Licence (OPL) 245 affair.
The Brescia court, chaired by Roberto Spanò, ruled that Milan prosecutors had a legal obligation to file documents that could have helped the defence team in that trial.
According to a report by Ansa, an Italian news website, the sentence was handed down yesterday by a Brescia court.
But the sentence is suspended — meaning they would only go to jail if there is a repeat offence.
This is another episode in the OPL 245 saga which the Italian prosecutors lost in the Court of Milan after failing to provide evidence of fraud in the sale of the oil block to Shell and Eni by Malabu Oil and Gas Limited, a Nigerian company, in 2011.
All the cases alleging fraud in the OPL 245 transaction failed in Italy, the United Kingdom (UK) and Nigeria.
These documents include those that could have helped the case of the defence.
The judges ruled that the prosecutors had infringed the rights of the defendants by failing to provide them.
Their lawyers had asked the magistrates to acquit them on the ground that they were not under obligation to present the documents to the Milan court.
De Pasquale was demoted in May 2024 by the country’s Superior Council of the Judiciary (CSM) for “lack of impartiality and fairness” in the way he handled the prosecution.
He had also hidden evidence that showed that the property purportedly linked to the former Attorney General of the Federation, Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN), the nation’s chief law officer when the OPL 245 resolution agreement was signed, as bribe from the OPL 245 in fact belonged to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Adoke was discharged by an FCT High Court in March 2024 over allegations of bribery and corruption in the transaction filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Also discharged and acquitted by the court are: Aliyu Abubakar, a businessman; Rasky Gbinigie, Malabu Oil & Gas Limited’s Company Secretary; Malabu Oil & Gas Limited; Nigeria Agip Exploration (NAE); Shell Ultra Deep Nigeria (SNUD) Limited; and Shell Nigeria Exploration Production Company (SNEPCO) Limited.
The court chided the EFCC for wasting four years over the case without a shred of evidence of the alleged crime.
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In 2020, the Nigerian government filed a case against Shell/SNUD and Eni, asking for $1.3 billion as compensation over OPL 245.
The case, which had dragged on for over a decade, came to a halt when the Ministry of Justice withdrew its petition in an Italian Court last March.
Also, an international court in Italy had declared Shell and its affiliate partners not guilty on all counts.