Dubai: An Argentinean company manager, currently standing trial in two graft cases, walked out on bail after having spent nearly 40 months in provisional detention.
The 61-year-old manager, identified as K.M., was released on Tuesday night following extraordinary efforts by his wife.
K.M. pleaded not guilty and firmly rejected the charges of committing financial irregularities before the Dubai Court of First Instance.
For the past three weeks, K.M.’s wife and relatives have been going back and forth between Dubai Courts and the Public Prosecution to be able to implement the bail decision.
In early July, Dubai Criminal Court’s Chief Justice Ahmad Abdullah issued a decision granting conditional bail to K.M., who has been in provisional detention for three years and four months.
The Argentinean’s passport and that of a guarantor are supposed to be retained by the court in addition to Dh500,000 as financial bond.
His wife knocked on the doors of nearly every concerned judge and senior and chief prosecutors and spared no efforts, along with her husband’s lawyer Eisa Bin Haidar, to work on releasing K.M.
Chief Judge Abdullah’s bail decision also included Deyaar’s American former CEO, Z.S., who was released nearly two weeks ago.
The wife persisted round the clock, going from one judge’s office to another as she did with top prosecutors until her efforts bore fruit.
In one case M.K., Z.S. and others are charged with unlawfully gaining Dh10 million from a business tender.
Advocate Bin Haidar persistently attempted to convince the court to grant bail to his client who is a cancer patient. He argued: “Law enforcement procedures were carried out unlawfully against K.M. In the original accusation sheet, my client had one charge. When the court returned the case file to the prosecution to enlist two more suspects, prosecutors modified charges against my client and added four more new accusations. This is unlawful. The accusations are baseless and groundless.”
Bin Haidar asked the court to delegate three experts from the Ministry of Justice to revise the financial report submitted by the Dubai Financial Control Department in his client’s case.
