Ex-DIC official loses appeal in court

Dubai: A sales manager who used to work for Dubai Industrial City (DIC) has lost his appeal against the primary judgment, a three-year imprisonment, after a court found him guilty of collecting Dh17 million in kickbacks in property deals.

The Dubai Court of Appeal on Tuesday convicted the 32-year-old Emirati defendant, A.F., of collecting Dh17 million in unlawful commissions for selling and reselling properties at DIC.

Presiding Judge Mustafa Al Shennawi upheld the prison term and the Dh17 million fine and ordered A.F. to repay the money collected in commissions.

His lawyer, Dr Abdullah Al Saeedi, told Gulf News that he will appeal yesterday's judgment before the Dubai Cassation Court within 30 days.

The accused earlier denied the charge of asking a number of DIC clients to pay him unlawful commissions to the tune of Dh17 million for selling and leasing DIC properties.

Prosecutors charged A.F. with collecting the money in cheques or through bank transfers to the account of an electronics company that was registered in the names of his sister and mother. According to the charge sheet, A.A. was in charge of the electronics company's accounts.

Dr Al Saeedi said that his client did not request any unlawful commissions for the property deals and did not abuse his authority as a public servant.

"The Public Prosecution charged him with illegally benefiting from the public works assigned to him and collecting bribes. The Dubai Economic Department licensed DIC and this makes it a private company and not a public one," argued the lawyer.

The prosecution witnesses failed to prove that A.F. abused the DIC's statute, said Dr Al Saeedi.

An Emirati DIC senior executive testified that between June 2006 and July 2007 the accused collected Dh30 million in payments from several customers.

"The defendant was in charge of booking commercial and industrial properties to sell or lease them to clients. He used to inform his customers that the property they desired had been booked by others before convincing those customers to pay extra fees and to deposit these fees in the electronics company's accounts," the senior executive testified to prosecutors.