Dubai: Deyaar’s American ex-CEO has won acquittals in a list of four graft cases lodged against him in a span of two days.
The Dubai Cassation Court on Monday confirmed that 48-year-old American-Lebanese Z.S. is innocent of causing a deliberate loss in public funds [as Dubai Islamic Bank owns 41 per cent in Deyaar’s shares] worth Dh1.2 million.
On Sunday, the Dubai Appeal Court cancelled a 15-year imprisonment against Z.S. and acquitted him of abusing his office and deliberately causing a loss of Dh30 million in public funds by pushing through an illegal tender.
Since April 2008, the former CEO has been standing trial before Dubai courts’ different stages [First Instance, Appeal and Cassation] facing four different corruption cases in which he has been charged with committing financial irregularities worth more than Dh350 million in total.
The Cassation Court’s presiding judge Mohammad Nabil Riyadh rejected prosecutors’ appeal and upheld the acquittal of Z.S. and his successor as Deyaar’s CEO, M.G., and a German. The former CEOs were cleared of deliberately causing losses of Dh4.5 million [Dh1.2 million and Dh3.3 million respectively] between January 2008 and February 2010, during their tenures as CEO for the property company.
The duo was cleared for lack of corroborated evidence.
Also on Sunday, the Appeal Court’s presiding judge Eisa Al Sharif scraped a 15-year jail term and a Dh30 million fine against Z.S. and acquitted him of abusing his position and helping Thermo, a construction services company, to win a tender illegally so he could make a personal gain of Dh20 million.
Concerning the two remaining graft cases, Z.S. is still standing trial in one case before the Court of First Instance.
Meanwhile Presiding judge Mohammad Jamal [head of Court of First Instance’s second bench] recently decided to put off the proceedings of the fourth case until a ruling is reached in the pending case.
Presiding judge Al Sharif said the appellate court overturned the primary verdict citing unsubstantiated evidence.
