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Jail term for bribery cut to 3 years

DUBAI — The Court of Appeal on Wednesday reduced the five-year imprisonment sentence of a former expert and arbitrator at Dubai Courts to three years, for soliciting and collecting a bribe.

The court, presided by Judge Moustapha Shinawi, however, upheld the deportation order and Dh40,000 fine against the 59-year-old Egyptian defendant handed down by a lower court. The verdict is subject to appeal at the Cassation Court within 30 days.

The defendant was convicted by the Court of First Instance in June in a case of soliciting and taking Dh40,000 as bribe from a customer, the complainant, to prepare a technical report in his favour in a civil lawsuit. He was sentenced to serve five years in prison, slapped a fine of Dh40,000 and ordered to be deported after serving his jail term.

The defence lawyer argued in the appellate court earlier that his client had been made a victim in a trap set up by the complainant. Roukoz Hobeika, representing the former arbitrator, told the court that his client has lived for more than 30 years in the UAE of which he had spent 18 years as an arbitrator at the courts with a decent record.

Counsel Hobeika argued that the complaint was malicious and meant to eliminate the defendant from the civil case he was assigned by the courts as an arbitrator on. Hobeika said that there was nothing to prove that the envelope seized as a proof on the arrest day was the same envelope containing Dh40,000 belonging to the Dubai Police, which had been given earlier to a Romanian woman legal consultant, an assistant to the complainant.

According to the arraignment sheet of the Public Prosecution, the defendant solicited and accepted the bribe to do a service which did not go in line with his job duties.

The complainant is a 40-year-old German businessman. He told the prosecutors that a compatriot businessman filed a lawsuit against him seeking damages for losses he (the compatriot) incurred in his business.

The complainant owns a contracting company. “I helped my compatriot by referring my customers to his engineering consultancy company. However, later on I heard one of them did not pay him up and he put the blame on me.” He added that his compatriot then sued him in courts. The defendant was appointed as an expert by the Real Estate Appeal Court after the complainant won the case and his compatriot filed an appeal.

The complainant alleged that the defendant suggested that they reconciled and solicited Dh40,000 to prepare a technical report in their favour. The complainant’s assistant lured the defendant to meet her in a mall on November 24, 2009 in coordination with the police.

mary@khaleejtimes.com