Dubai: Dubai’s highest court on Monday overturned the acquittal of Deyaar’s ex-CEO in the case of abusing his office and causing Dh30 million of losses in public funds by pushing through an illegal tender.

The Dubai Cassation Court’s presiding judge Mohammad Nabeel Riyadh referred the case of the 48-year-old American-Lebanese Z.S. back to the appeal court.

In November 2013, the Appeal Court scrapped 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.

The Public Funds Prosecution appealed the acquittal before the Cassation Court.

Presiding judge Riyadh said a new panel of judges at the Appeal Court would look into the case.

The reasons as to why the case was being sent back to the appeal court were not disclosed.

Thermo’s former project manager, Argentinean K.M, and a Canadian, F.L, and Thermo’s ex-general manager A.S, a Briton, were sentenced to ten years in jail each for making illegal gains to the tune of Dh10 million from the tender.

The Court of First Instance had earlier ordered Z.S. and K.M. and F.L. and A.S. to jointly pay a fine of Dh29 million. They were also ordered to repay Deyaar the same amount.

All the defendants, except Z.S, were sentenced in absentia.

Prosecutors had accused the defendants of deliberately inflicting losses on Deyaar, a company in which Dubai Government owns a stake.

Z.S. pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The former CEO of Deyaar has been in custody since April 2008 standing trial before various Dubai courts (First Instance, Appeal And Cassation).

He won an irrevocable acquittal in one case while a case is still pending before the primary court.

Following Monday’s ruling, a second case now remains pending before the Appeal Court. When Z.S. was granted bail in 2013, he fled the UAE for sometime before he was re-arrested in Yemen. Since his repatriation from Yemen during last summer, he has been in custody at Dubai Central Jail.