[Assam] [assam] High-fliers turn hunger-strikers after Dubai desert dream ends in jail

[bhuban.baruah]

The Independent UK (May 19, 2012)

Suggested Topics
Investment
Punishment
Archipelago And Islands
The Super-Rich
Cheque (means Of Payment)
Hunger striking is a tactic more often associated with prisoners of 
conscience and political detainees, but a group of expatriates serving 
prison sentences in Dubai have a background in high finance.

Safi Qurashi, once a millionaire British property magnate, is one of 
around 20 expats who have gone nearly a month without food in Al Awir 
Prison in the hope that their protest will bring about a change in laws 
that criminalise the bouncing of a cheque.

With a sentence of up to three years being handed down for every cheque 
that bounces, and sentences running consecutively, some are facing 
decades behind bars.

Qurashi, 43, from London, was among the droves of Western businessmen 
who flocked to the oil-rich United Arab Emirates to cash in on soaring 
property prices. Best known for the £43m he invested in buying the 
Great Britain island on the unfinished World development – an 
archipelago of artificial islands – Qurashi became entangled in the 
archaic financial laws when boom turned to bust in late 2008, and is 
three years into a seven-year sentence for two bounced cheques.

"I have made a vow that the next meal I have will be with my children," 
he says over the prison phone. "If that doesn't happen then so be it. 
The hunger strike is either going to take my life or get me out of 
here." Post-dated security cheques are used to underwrite the majority 
of financial transactions in Dubai, from mortgages and car loans to 
property deals. The practice dates back to before the United Arab 
Emirates was formed in 1971.

But despite lawyers' and officials' recognition of the need for an 
update to bankruptcy and financial crime laws, changes are yet to be 
implemented. An Irish expatriate, Christopher Renehan, was the first to 
begin the hunger strike on 18 April amid frustration that he was unable 
to settle his financial situation from behind bars. He says late 
payments from a client caused cheques that he had written to 
contractors to bounce.

"Not everybody is innocent – I'm no angel myself – but there are a lot 
of honest businessmen in here who want to pay people but can't," says 
Renehan, who is serving six years.

Each bounced cheque holds a sentence of up to three years and although 
the law stipulates they should be issued in "bad faith" for a criminal 
case, lawyers say this is not how the legislation is interpreted.

Nasser Hashem, partner at a Dubai law firm which takes on around 15 new 
bounced-cheque cases every month, says the circumstances are not taken 
into account. "The bouncing of the cheque is considered a crime 
regardless," he says. "Most of our clients are just people whose 
circumstances have changed. They've written cheques for a mortgage or 
car payments and then lost their job."

Unlike neighbouring Abu Dhabi, where the same law applies, in Dubai 
sentences for cheques related to the same case run consecutively, 
rather than concurrently, leaving former businessmen with hefty 
sentences.

Facing one of the longest is Peter Margetts, 48, a property developer 
 from Kew. Margetts was cleared of fraud charges, but given 23 years 
behind bars for bounced cheques. His 46-year sentence was halved on 
appeal.

"There's no defence to a bad cheque – if it bounces you go to jail," he 
says. "I've exhausted all legal avenues and I've lost hope. I'm here 
for longer than some people get for murder, rape and really heinous 
crimes."

Prison officials have repeatedly denied that any of the men are on 
hunger strike, despite the fact that one Belgian inmate, Olivier Loeb, 
who had begun to refuse liquids, collapsed in a court hearing on 
Thursday morning and was admitted to hospital.

As growth and consumer confidence return to the UAE, outdated business 
practices remain a concern to foreign investors. Officials have 
complained that cheque cases clog the judicial system and the outspoken 
chief of Dubai Police, Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, is among those to call for 
bounced cheques to be considered as a civil offence.

"Everybody knows there is a problem with the law," says Loeb. "They 
just need to solve it."

By numbers

240,000 Britons living in Dubai

0 Dubai’s income tax rate

265 Britons arrested in Dubai in 2010