Court increases fines and jail terms in Sama Dubai case

The Dubai Court of Appeals has increased penalties for defendants in a case of financial wrongdoings in Sama Dubai after both the public prosecution and the defendants filed appeals against an earlier verdict by the Dubai Criminal Court.

While the public prosecution had appealed against the leniency of the Criminal Court’s sentences, the defendants had appealed against its severity.

The appeals court yesterday upheld the prosecution’s appeal and increased jail terms from one and two years to three years for three defendants MM, NS and MA, and repealed the acquittal of another defendant AM, sentencing him to three years. In addition, it increased the fine on the first three defendants from Dh2 million to Dh4.85m and ordered them to return an equal amount to Sama Dubai.

AM was also fined Dh2.9m and ordered to pay an equal sum to Sama Dubai. Another defendant, AH, was acquitted of accepting a bribe of Dh4.85m in collaboration with the first and second defendants, but the court upheld his one-year imprisonment for accepting another bribe of Dh650,000.

Earlier, the Dubai Criminal Court had sentenced MM, MN and NS to one year in jail and fined them Dh1.35m for accepting bribes. It also sentenced MM, MN and AH to one year in jail and fined them Dh650,000 on separate charges of receiving commissions (for MN and NS) and accepting bribes (for AH). The four were acquitted of all other charges. The court acquitted AM of all charges. The court said in its sentences that Sama Dubai was a public firm. Therefore, it ignored the defendants’ defence, which called to consider Sama Dubai as a private joint stock company in acquitting the accused.

The five defendants involved in the case are Emirati, NS, a former sales consultant at Sama Dubai’s Al Khayran; Emirati, MM, former Al Khayran sales manager; Syrian, AH, former director of real estate development at Damac; MN, former senior sales executive at Al Khayran who carries no documents; and AM, executive chairman of Al Khayran.

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