Lawyers want ex-Nakheel executives acquitted in Dh44m corruption trial

Dubai: Two lawyers argued against the corruption charges leveled against their clients and asked a court to acquit them of committing financial irregularities that incurred Dh44.1 million in loss to Nakheel's Dubai Waterfront project.

The two Australian suspects, 43-year-old M.J., the project's former executive director, and 40-year-old M.R., the ex-operations manager, had strongly refuted the charges of abusing public office and intentionally causing loss and dispersing public funds worth Dh44.1 million.

Advocates Salim Al Shaali and Ali Abdullah Al Shamsi, who defended M.J. and M.R. , asked the Dubai Court of First Instance 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 allegedly went to M.J.

Giving an interactive defence argument using a presentation-board in courtroom four, 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 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 terrorized 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.

His counterpart advocate Al Shamsi argued: "My client 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 book and the orders given to him by his superiors. Do we reward good employee who carries their duties properly and lawfully by sending them to the criminal court?"

"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'. We ask the court to dismiss this case because it was lodged out of malice," said Al Shaali when he presented his defence before Presiding Judge Mohammad Jamal Kamel.

Advocate Al Shamsi produced several documents countering what his client, M.R., was falsely accused of doing.

A judgment will be heard on June 17.