by Ganesh Sahathevan
The following extract is from a report published by Tabreed, or the National Central Cooling Company of the UAE, dated 30 April 2011:
However by June 2019 Khadem was reported saying:
“I did this deal but I did it on behalf of the government of Abu Dhabi,” he said, adding that he was being forced to turn over assets to Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed, former chairman of IPIC and senior member of the emirate’s royal family. Now “they are putting everything on my back,” he said at the time.
As well as receiving jail sentences, the two men must jointly pay more than $300 million
Khadem al Qubaisi, a United Arab Emirates citizen who once headed Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Company, was given a 15-year prison sentence and Mohammed Badawy al Husseiny, an American citizen who ran a subsidiary of IPIC, was sentenced to 10 years. They jointly must pay about €300 million ($336 million), half to IPIC, referred to as the “victim company,” and half as a penalty, according to the criminal court. The press release didn’t identify the men by name, but people familiar with the judicial actions confirmed the unnamed defendants were Messrs. Al Qubaisi and Mr. Al Husseiny.
Lawyers for both men and a representative of the Abu Dhabi Criminal Court declined to comment on the charges.
The Abu Dhabi court statement didn’t mention specific details of the charges, other than to say Mr. Al Qubaisi, referred to as the “first defendant,” was convicted of “exploiting his job and unlawfully appropriating 149 million euros after selling shares he owns for the company he heads, without disclosing his ownership of the shares, for 210 million euros.”
Further details of that transaction weren’t provided, but people familiar with the conviction said it wasn’t related to the Malaysian fund scandal. The statement said the investigations were part of a broader investigation by the Abu Dhabi Public Funds Prosecution into allegations of corruption.
Mr. Al Husseiny, the “second defendant,” was convicted of “exploiting his position and facilitating the seizure of the company’s money by” Mr. Al Qubaisi, according to the statement and people familiar with the matter.
In an interview in January, Mr. Al Qubaisi told The Wall Street Journal from Al Wathba prison in Abu Dhabi that he was being unfairly blamed as the “scapegoat” for the U.A.E.’s role in the 1Malaysia Development Bhd. scandal, where the Justice Department says $4.5 billion was stolen and distributed among a group of alleged co-conspirators, including Messrs. Al Qubaisi and Al Husseiny.
“I did this deal but I did it on behalf of the government of Abu Dhabi,” he said, adding that he was being forced to turn over assets to Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed, former chairman of IPIC and senior member of the emirate’s royal family. Now “they are putting everything on my back,” he said at the time.
Sheikh Mansour didn’t respond to a request for comment at the time.
Mr. Al Qubaisi also claimed he had been handcuffed to a window in a corridor and left for 24 hours, saying his plan was to “die here in this place or get out.”
An Abu Dhabi lawyer involved with the case denied Mr. Al Qubaisi’s account of his prison conditions.
The Journal hasn’t been able to communicate with Mr. Al Qubaisi again since Januar
No comments:
Post a Comment