Executive cleared in Dh44.1m Nakheel graft case

Dubai: Nakhleel’s Australian former operations manager has been acquitted of abusing his job at the Dubai Waterfront Project and committing financial irregularities worth Dh44 million.

Meanwhile his countryman, M.J., the project’s former executive director, has been found guilty and will have to spend 10 years in jail.

The Dubai Court of First Instance on Monday cleared the 41-year-old ex-operations manager, M.R., and his countryman A.J., who was Dubai Waterfront’s former legal adviser, of committing any form or irregularity or abuse of public office.

Presiding judge Ali Attiyah Sa’ad however sentenced 44-year-old M.J. [the former executive director] and Australian businessman A.R., to ten years in jail each.

“M.J. and A.R. will jointly pay a fine of Dh44.1 million and will have to jointly repay the same amount to Nakheel. They will be deported following the completion of their punishment,” said Saad.

The court sentenced A.J. and A.R. in absentia because they are at large.

Meanwhile M.R. and M.J. are out on bail. They were detained in February 2009 and remained in custody until the court granted them bail in October 2009. However they were banned from travelling during the trial.

M.R.’s acquittal came after his lawyer Ali Abdullah Al Shamsi asked the court 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”.

Advocate Al Shamsi also provided the court with several documents countering what his client, M.R., was falsely accused of doing.

Since the case surfaced in court in September 2009, M.J. and M.R. had strongly refuted the charges of abusing public office and intentionally causing loss and dispersing public funds worth Dh44.1 million.

Prosecutors had charged M.J., M.R., and the two fugitives, A.J. and A.R., with abusing public office and intentionally damaging Nakheel’s interests by siphoning off Dh44.1 million, out of which Dh22.1 million allegedly went to M.J.

Advocates Salim Al Shaali, who defended M.J., argued: “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 let off the hook while 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 with being accused of bribery had he not lodged this case,” Al Shaali said.

Al Shamsi argued: “ M.R. did not take a single penny. 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 the book and the orders given to him by his superiors. Do we reward good employees who carry out their duties properly and lawfully by sending them to the criminal court?”

Meanwhile Al Shaali contended: “D.B. testified before a Melbourne court that most of his statements before Dubai prosecutors were incomplete and incorrect. He admitted that he lied and that most of the evidence which he produced against the suspects in this case was ‘wrong’. The case was lodged out of malice.”

Monday’s judgement remains subject to appeal within 15 days.