A former executive at Monaco and gas consultancy Unaoil was sentenced in London to three years and four months in jail on Thursday for bribing Iraqi officials to clinch $1.7 billion of oil projects.
Basil Al Jarah, Unaoil's former Iraq manager, admitted to paying $17 million in bribes to secure contracts to build pipelines, an oil platform and offshore mooring buoys in the Arabian Gulf, as the war-torn nation tries to shore up its battered economy.
It is the third sentence by a London judge after a five-year inquiry by the Serious Fraud Office and the US into how the Ahsani family, who ran Unaoil, secured energy contracts for blue-chip clients in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia.
Former Unaoil managers Stephen Whiteley, 55, and Ziad Akle, 45, had already been sentenced to three and five years in jail after a London trial.
"This was a classic case of corruption, where powerful men took advantage of the desperation and vulnerability of others to line their own pockets," fraud office head Lisa Osofsky said.
John Milner, Al Jarah's lawyer, said he was disappointed the court had not agreed to a suspended sentence.
Mr Milner said the court chose to ignore the owners of Unaoil who were "unlikely to share Mr Al Jarah's fate".
The investigation originally centred on the Ahsanis.
But failed extradition attempts ended in a clash in Italy with US prosecutors over the extradition of Saman Ahsani in 2018, foiling the agency's attempts to prosecute them in Britain.
British prosecutors said Iraqi-born Al Jarah, 71, British-Lebanese Akle and Whiteley, who is British, conspired with others to bribe public officials at Iraq's South Oil Company and, in Al Jarah's case, the Iraqi Ministry of Oil.
Akle and Whiteley denied wrongdoing. Al Jarah pleaded guilty to five offences in 2019 and asked for further offences to be taken into consideration at his sentencing on Thursday.
Whiteley and Akle, who were found guilty of conspiring to pay more than $500,000 in bribes to win a $55m oil contract, plan to appeal against their convictions, their lawyers say.
Paul Bond, 68, a former sales manager for then Unaoil client SBM Offshore, faces a retrial in January after the jury could not reach a verdict.
Brothers Cyrus and Saman Ahsani, Unaoil's British-Iranian former chief executive and chief operating officer, await sentencing in the US after pleading guilty to bribery in 2019.
Their father, Ata Ahsani, has not been prosecuted.
In The Heights
Directed by: Jon M. Chu
Stars: Anthony Ramos, Lin-Manual Miranda
Rating: ****
What are the influencer academy modules?
- Mastery of audio-visual content creation.
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About Tenderd
Started: May 2018
Founder: Arjun Mohan
Based: Dubai
Size: 23 employees
Funding: Raised $5.8m in a seed fund round in December 2018. Backers include Y Combinator, Beco Capital, Venturesouq, Paul Graham, Peter Thiel, Paul Buchheit, Justin Mateen, Matt Mickiewicz, SOMA, Dynamo and Global Founders Capital
From Zero
Artist: Linkin Park
Label: Warner Records
Number of tracks: 11
Rating: 4/5
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Uefa Champions League play-off
First leg: Wednesday, 11pm (UAE)
Ajax v Dynamo Kiev
Second leg: Tuesday, August 28, 11pm (UAE)
Dynamo Kiev v Ajax
The Limehouse Golem
Director: Juan Carlos Medina
Cast: Olivia Cooke, Bill Nighy, Douglas Booth
Three stars
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Tarek Kabrit, chief executive of Seez, and Imad Hammad, chief executive and co-founder of CarSwitch.com
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE tour of Zimbabwe
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THE SPECS
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The biog
Year of birth: 1988
Place of birth: Baghdad
Education: PhD student and co-researcher at Greifswald University, Germany
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Dhadak 2
Director: Shazia Iqbal
Starring: Siddhant Chaturvedi, Triptii Dimri
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How to wear a kandura
Dos
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- Wear a white kandura, white ghutra / shemagh (headwear) and black shoes for work
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'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse Of Madness'
Director: Sam Raimi
Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong, Xochitl Gomez, Michael Stuhlbarg and Rachel McAdams
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About Krews
Founder: Ahmed Al Qubaisi
Based: Abu Dhabi
Founded: January 2019
Number of employees: 10
Sector: Technology/Social media
Funding to date: Estimated $300,000 from Hub71 in-kind support
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
The Cairo Statement
1: Commit to countering all types of terrorism and extremism in all their manifestations
2: Denounce violence and the rhetoric of hatred
3: Adhere to the full compliance with the Riyadh accord of 2014 and the subsequent meeting and executive procedures approved in 2014 by the GCC
4: Comply with all recommendations of the Summit between the US and Muslim countries held in May 2017 in Saudi Arabia.
5: Refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of countries and of supporting rogue entities.
6: Carry out the responsibility of all the countries with the international community to counter all manifestations of extremism and terrorism that threaten international peace and security
Company profile
Name: The Concept
Founders: Yadhushan Mahendran, Maria Sobh and Muhammad Rijal
Based: Abu Dhabi
Founded: 2017
Number of employees: 7
Sector: Aviation and space industry
Funding: $250,000
Future plans: Looking to raise $1 million investment to boost expansion and develop new products
The specs: 2018 Maserati Levante S
Price, base / as tested: Dh409,000 / Dh467,000
Engine: 3.0-litre V6
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
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Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
VEZEETA PROFILE
Date started: 2012
Founder: Amir Barsoum
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: HealthTech / MedTech
Size: 300 employees
Funding: $22.6 million (as of September 2018)
Investors: Technology Development Fund, Silicon Badia, Beco Capital, Vostok New Ventures, Endeavour Catalyst, Crescent Enterprises’ CE-Ventures, Saudi Technology Ventures and IFC
Children who witnessed blood bath want to help others
Aged just 11, Khulood Al Najjar’s daughter, Nora, bravely attempted to fight off Philip Spence. Her finger was injured when she put her hand in between the claw hammer and her mother’s head.
As a vital witness, she was forced to relive the ordeal by police who needed to identify the attacker and ensure he was found guilty.
Now aged 16, Nora has decided she wants to dedicate her career to helping other victims of crime.
“It was very horrible for her. She saw her mum, dying, just next to her eyes. But now she just wants to go forward,” said Khulood, speaking about how her eldest daughter was dealing with the trauma of the incident five years ago. “She is saying, 'mama, I want to be a lawyer, I want to help people achieve justice'.”
Khulood’s youngest daughter, Fatima, was seven at the time of the attack and attempted to help paramedics responding to the incident.
“Now she wants to be a maxillofacial doctor,” Khulood said. “She said to me ‘it is because a maxillofacial doctor returned your face, mama’. Now she wants to help people see themselves in the mirror again.”
Khulood’s son, Saeed, was nine in 2014 and slept through the attack. While he did not witness the trauma, this made it more difficult for him to understand what had happened. He has ambitions to become an engineer.
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Company%20profile
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