Dubai: A court has referred Nakheel’s Dubai Waterfront graft case involving two executives, who caused deliberate loss of Dh44 million, to prosecutors to probe uninvestigated incidents after nearly three years of proceedings. The Dubai Court of First Instance on Sunday decided to refer the case file back to the Public Funds Prosecution after it was discovered that several dealings were conducted by the two Australian executives and remained uninvestigated.
Presiding Judge Mohammad Jamal reached Sunday’s surprising decision following more than three years of court proceedings and nearly one year of prosecution investigations.
The Australian suspects, 43-year-old M.J., the project’s former executive director, and 40-year-old M.R., the ex-operations manager, strongly refuted the charges of abusing public office and intentionally causing loss and dispersing public funds [Nakheel’s money] worth Dh44.1 million.
“The court cannot hand out a judgment in an incident that was not probed and referred to court by public prosecution for jurisdictional purposes. Hence the panel of judges has decided to refer the case back to prosecutors for further probing related to uninvestigated incidents of deliberately inflicting a loss in public funds. The ruling would be considered as void in case the court issued such a judgment according to the aforementioned status. Prosecutors would either drop the case or issue a new accusation sheet and refer the case to a different panel of judges,” according to Sunday’s decision.
Advocates Salim Al Shaali and Ali Abdullah Al Shamsi, who defended M.J. and M.R. respectively, asked the court earlier to disregard the financial report submitted by the financial control department of the ruler’s court “because it was unsubstantiated and based on unfounded reports and calculations”.
Prosecutors charged M.J., M.R., and Dubai Waterfront’s former legal adviser, and a 44-year-old Australian A.J. (who is at large), with abusing public office and intentionally damaging Nakheel’s interests by siphoning off with Dh44.1 million, out of which Dh22.1 million went to M.J.
Al Shaali contended: “My client did not work on his own. There was a five-member committee that included M.J., M.R. and three top executives from Nakheel that set the prices at which the land plots were sold at the Waterfront Project. Why was it only those two gentlemen who were charged with corruption? The other three executives [who were the real decision-makers] should have also been tried as well. Why they were taken off the hook and meanwhile only M.J. and M.R. were charged?”
Prosecution records said the defendants defrauded a Dubai-based property developer and its Australian manager D.B. of Dh44.1 million.
“D.B. [the main complainant in this case] claimed before an Australian court that he was terrorised and coerced by Dubai authorities to lodge this complaint. He alleged that he was threatened to be accused of bribery had he not lodged this case,” defended Al Shaali.
Al Shamsi argued: “Nakheel did not incur any loss. Prosecutors based their accusation on unfounded and groundless evidence. M.R. did not abuse his job, but on the contrary he worked as per book and the orders given to him by his superiors.”
