Dubai: Real estate company Deyaar’s former chief executive officer was on Monday jailed for 10 years for abusing his office and committing financial irregularities involving funds of over Dh43 million between 2006 and 2007.

In what is known as Deyaar’s ‘first and major graft case’ involving the 52-year-old American-Lebanese, Z.S., and nine others, the Dubai Court of First Instance convicted him on three counts of financial irregularities on Monday.

Following eight years of court proceedings since 2008, presiding judge Urfan Omar jailed Z.S.; J.D., an Indian and Deyaar’s former operations’ manager; and K.M., an Argentinian company owner, to 10 years and fined them Dh36 million.

The trio [Z.S., J.D. and K.M.] were also jointly ordered to repay Dh36 million to Deyaar.

Within the past two days, Z.S. has been ordered to spend 25 years in prison following Sunday’s ruling [15 years in jail] for his conviction in another Dh56 million graft case. On Sunday, he was jailed for 15 years for abusing his office and misappropriating Dh56.3 million over the sale of a plot in Texas in November 2007.

According to Monday’s ruling, Indian marketing manager J.K. was jailed for three years.

“Z.S., J.K. and J.D. have to pay a fine of Dh6.4 million and jointly repay the same amount to Deyaar. Meanwhile, Z.S. will have to solely pay a fine of Dh530,000 and repay the same amount to Deyaar as well. The claimant’s [Deyaar] civil lawsuit has been referred to the Dubai Civil Court,” said presiding judge Omar in court.

The arraignment sheet included Z.S.; J.K.; K.M.; J.D.; M.K., an Emirati former minister; and five other suspects, including two Indian executives, J.P. and N.S.; a Lebanese sales representative, C.B.; a Palestinian sales director, H.K.; and a Pakistani salesman, H.S.

The suspects were charged with abuse of office, illegal profiting, dispersing public funds, divulging secrets, forgery, breach of trust, swindling, deception, embezzlement, bribery and others.

Presiding judge Omar dismissed the case against the former minister, M.K., following his death.

Despite having been on trial for more than eight years, J.P., N.S., C.B., H.K. and H.S. were acquitted for lack of corroborated evidence.

The 10 suspects had pleaded not guilty and refuted their accusations of committing financial irregularities [directly or indirectly] worth more than Dh250 million.

In an earlier court hearing, a court-appointed committee of financial experts revised the case files [more than 13 boxes] that contained thousands of official and unofficial papers, accounts and financial statements and records.

The committee was tasked to study the defence teams’ objections pertaining to the financial report that was issued by the Rulers Court’s Financial Control Department [FCD].

Since it surfaced before the Dubai Misdemeanours Court for the first time in 2009, the case has been handled by more than five benches of judges and before different chambers.

The case was also referred back to Dubai prosecutors, who modified the charge sheet twice between 2009 and 2012.

Out of five graft cases involving Deyaar, this [the one ruled on Monday] was believed to be of the highest importance in terms of the misappropriated amounts and the suspects’ profiles as it involved a former CEO and late M.K. in his capacity as Deyaar’s former board chairman.

As this week’s two rulings against Z.S. remain subject to appeal, it is worth mentioning that the American-Lebanese was acquitted in three other graft cases. His acquittals in the aforementioned cases became final.

Z.S. had been in custody since April 2008 before he stood on various trials.

On July 12, 2012, Z.S. was released on bail after he deposited his passport and that of an Emirati guarantor plus Dh5 million [financial bond].

Z.S. was not allowed to leave the UAE because of a court-imposed travel ban on him.

He absconded from the UAE and was later arrested in Yemen.

He was then extradited to the UAE and since then he was put back in custody.