The Attorney General (AG) and Minister of Justice, Dr. Dominic Ayine, has defended the bail conditions imposed by investigative bodies on former government appointees being probed for alleged corruption.
Dr. Ayine explained that the conditions are not excessive but are necessary safeguards to ensure suspects remain available to stand trial.
He made the clarification while responding to questions from Members of Parliament on the floor of Parliament on Tuesday.
“The Economic and Organized Crime Office and other law enforcement agencies under my ministry are not acting arbitrarily. Bail depends on the crime, the gravity of the crime. And so what we are seeing now is that the sums involved in the criminal investigations are very huge.
“And because they are very huge, if you set very low bail conditions in terms of the sums, the likelihood is that when the person, the suspect escapes or is unavailable to stand trial, whatever you are able to extract in justification will not be able to upset the sum that is involved, the criminal liability that is involved,” he said.
