Landmark judgment on appeal against sentence

Abu Dhabi //In a landmark judgement, the Federal Supreme Court ruled yesterday that an appeals court may not increase a sentence if the convicted person is the only one to appeal.

The ruling, which sets a legal precedent, means that the prosecution or another party to a case must also appeal against a sentence before an appeals court can increase it.

"An appellant should not be put at a disadvantage by his or her own appeal," Chief Justice Khalifa al Muhairi wrote in the judgment. The court was giving its decision in the case of a branch manager of Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank in Al Ain and three other employees accused of embezzlement.

All four were acquitted in January 2005, but prosecutors appealed and in December 2006 they were found guilty. The manager, AM, was sentenced to six months in prison, and the other three received three months each.

Court documents did not specify the amount embezzled. The four appealed to the Court of Cassation, which rejected the appeals court decision and ordered the case to be tried under a new panel. The new panel upheld the sentence on the manager, but increased the others from three months to four months in jail.

Yesterday the Federal Supreme Court ruled that the appeals court had erred by increasing the sentences because the convicted men were the only ones who had lodged an appeal.

Only if another party appeals the verdict can the sentence or punishment be increased, the court ruled.

The Supreme Court ordered the sentences to be restored to three months in jail.

Prosecutors said AM conspired with one of the others to offer illicit loans to their own companies, to relatives, to people at high risk of default and to unqualified non-GCC nationals. Loans would be either under the name of the manager's company, false names or family members' names.

Some of the loans were supposed to be offered only to applicants with specific credentials. For instance, the bank offers certain loans to GCC nationals who work at UAE institutions within the federal Government, or semi-governmental institutions. The applicant must be a businessman with a proper licence from the Ministry of Labour.

But prosecutors said the fur bank employees approved loans for people with little or no guarantee they would be able to pay back their debts. In one instance, they offered a loan to a client who was not even in the country.

Prosecutors accused one of the employees of forging documents approving loans to ineligible applicants. He was also accused of forging documents showing non-existent applicants for car loans. The seller of the cars in those cases was a company belonging to one of the four men.

Investigators said AM approved several passport copies necessary to open bank accounts before offering the fake applicants equally fake contracts in which his two companies were beneficiaries. Both companies had accounts at the bank "specifically for this purpose", according to court documents.

AM personally signed six murabahahs, a Sharia-compliant sale to avoid usury by declaring costs and profits. The sales did not exist and it was not part of his job to sign such papers, prosecutors said.

hhassan@thenational.ae