Dubai, April 06: Four former executives of Sama Dubai’s Lagoon Project lost their appeal against their jail terms on Monday as the Court of Cassation upheld the verdict of the Court of Appeal.
On January 26, the Court of Appeal sentenced the four to three years each in prison.
The court sentenced an Emirati ex-sales manager, an Emirati ex-sales consultant and a stateless ex-sales senior executive to three years each in prison and ordered that Dh4.8 million be returned to Sama Dubai and an equal sum in fines be jointly paid, for taking bribes in the resale of three plots in the Lagoon.
Additionally, the court sentenced the ex-sales manager, the ex-sales executive and a Syrian ex-director at Damac to a year’s imprisonment and pay a joint fine of Dh650,000, as the two former Sama Dubai employees were found to have received illegal sums for the sale and resale of plots.
The court sentenced an Emirati ex-chief executive at Sama Dubai to three years in prison and ordered that Dh 2.8 million be returned to Sama Dubai and an equal sum be paid in fines.
On July 29 last year, the preliminary court had cleared the 43-year-old former chief executive of accepting in real and in cash benefits.
He was charged with acquiring five apartments worth more than Dh2.6 million and Dh200,000 in cash for allowing a company to not pay its instalments to Sama Dubai on time.
The same court sentenced the sales manager of the Lagoons to two years in prison and Dh1.36 million and Dh650,000 in fines. The sales consultant was also jailed for a year and fined Dh1.36 million.
The stateless senior executive was also sentenced to a two-year imprisonment and fined Dh1.36 million and Dh650,000.
The three defendants were convicted of collecting Dh1.35 million from Home Builders Company by unlawfully reselling land plots of Lagoons in the name of Sama Dubai. They were also found guilty of asking for an unlawful commission of Dh1.11 million from a VIP.
The Syrian Damac executive company was sentenced to one year in jail and a fine of Dh650,000 for accepting a bribe for helping in reselling three pieces of land in the Lagoons project.
–Agencies