Six jailed for 10 years in Dh1.84 billion DIB scam

The Dubai Criminal Court has jailed six people for ten years and asked them to repay Dh1.841 billion embezzled from Dubai Islamic Bank.
The Court acquitted the seventh accused AF, 58, from criminal complicity accusation.
 
The convicts shall be deported after serving their jail term.

Five businessmen and two senior executives of the bank were accused of embezzling the amount.

According to the accusation sheet, the bank’s two Pakistanis executives UH, 29, former financing department manager and his deputy, RU, 50, facilitated a total of Dh1.8bn loans to five businessmen by passing bogus documents and accelerating the credit limit for businessmen.

Businessmen include three British identified as CM, 48, RL, 54, and AF, 58, and two fugitives ZU, American and AI, Turk, are accused of embezzling the loan amounts and supplying the bank with bogus documents and bills to obtain financing from the bank.

In a previous hearing, Abdullah Ali Obaid Al Hamili, CEO of DIB, testified before the Court that the former administrative board had illegally conceded the bank’s rights as it is a public joint stock company.

“The administrative board is not authorised to drop bank’s right since it is a public joint stock company. In an internal meeting, the board dropped the bank’s rights which is illegal,” he said.

Al Hamili told the Court that he had heard about big financial facilities given and that there were suspicious and abnormal transactions by internal employees. Later the administrative board held a meetings repeatedly and ended up that there were frauds.

“Then I learnt that a settlement was reached and that the bank waived its right,” he said.

“Later after the meeting that was held between the board and the Dubai Financial Control Department, I learnt that the estimated amounts reached up to about $500 million,” he said.

Answering whether the bank has filed cases overseas, Al Hamili answered affirmatively saying in Bahrain and Turkey.

The case passed through different judicial stages after being referred to the Criminal Court by the Prosecution in March 2009. Last August, the court referred the case back to the prosecution to re-investigate and find out whether harming the bank’s welfare was deliberate and if the bank’s employees offered extra facilities to the businessmen and by that facilitated embezzlement of the bank’s money.

The prosecution’s re-investigations came affirmative.

However, the accused repeated their denial when the court reconvened and the defence lawyers suspected the authenticity of the prosecution’s documents saying they were bogus and forged.

In a previous hearing, the civil rights lawyers told the court Presided by Fahmi Munir Fahmi that the DIB was subject to a big shake due to the embezzlement that has affected the country’s economy. Giving this much amount of loans would not have happened should the bank’s employees did not approve them, they said.

The defence lawyers, however, asked for their clients’ acquittal and defended that the case is not a criminal but rather a civil right case as its record is void of any affirmative evidence against the accused. The case should not be heard by this court especially that the accused had reached a settlement agreement with the bank prior to the date of filing the case and they have actually paid the first installment as per the agreement.

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