FORMER LAWYER CONVICTED OF FRAUDULENTLY OBTAINING PUBLIC FUNDING TO MAKE IRAQ WAR CLAIMS AGAINST BRITISH SOLDIERS

John Ojakovoh, as Leading Counsel prosecuting a historic fraud case at Southwark Crown Court, secured the conviction this week of a former lawyer who had fraudulently obtained Legal Aid funding which was later used to bring very serious allegations, subsequently found in an Independent Inquiry to be without foundation, against British soldiers in connection with the Iraq War. The defendant, as Principal Solicitor of a then-prominent Human Rights law firm, failed to disclose, when applying for Legal Aid in 2007, that he had broken fundamental rules governing the acquisition of publicly funded clients in that he had enlisted an Iraqi middleman to cold call potential clients in Iraq and had paid the middleman cash for each client he referred. The defendant will be sentenced in December.

John Ojakovoh was instructed as Leading Counsel for the prosecution by the CPS Serious Economic Organised Crime and International Directorate (SEOCID).

Media: BBC, The Daily Mail, The Mirror