Dubai – Mubasher: Dubai’s Court of Cassation on Monday upheld two final and irrevocable convictions against the former CEO of Deyaar Development Zack Shahin in two graft cases, according to Khaleej Times newspaper.
Accordingly, Shahin will spend 25 years in jail.
The court upheld a ruling for a previous case from May 2016 in which the Dubai-based developer’s ex-CEO had a 15-year jail sentence over charges of misuse of power and AED 56.3 million fraud.
In the other case, the Court of Cassation upheld a 10-year jail sentence against Shahin, who was accused of damaging Deyaar's interests with losses of more than AED 21.5 million through private bargain deals he had done with contractors.
Shahin was ordered to pay AED 56.3 million as a fine and return the same amount to the plaintiff.
Similarly, the court upheld the acquittal verdict of any wrongdoing for five former Deyaar staff including head of the legal affairs section, the deputy head of the engineering department, the director of the department of international projects, the finance manager, and the COO.
The court further upheld 10-year jail terms for two other accomplices, an Indian and an Argentinean businessman, ordering them to return AED 35.568 million to Deyaar Development and jointly pay a similar amount in fines.
Having also upheld another Indian's three-year jail sentence, the court again ordered the ex-CEO and the two Indians to return AED 6.443 million, an equal sum in fines, in addition to repaying AED 530,000 and similar fines.
Shahin caused Deyaar to suffer losses by giving discounts to some customers and giving them priority over others who were ready at the time with cash to buy units at the market value, the newspaper added.
The former CEO was accused of forging documents to raise the price of some projects by changing the prices of units and embezzling the rest for himself. One such incident was in Turkey, where he misappropriated AED 6 million.
