Acquittals upheld in fatal World Islands fraud case

Ruling comes nine months after defendant Samir Chinoy jumped to his death.

DUBAI // Nine months after the World Islands sales executive Samir Chinoy jumped to his death at the Address Downtown hotel, an appeals court has upheld the acquittal of his five co-defendants on bribery charges in a Dh22 million fraud case.

The suspects, including Chinoy's father, RC, were acquitted yesterday by the Dubai Court of Appeals on charges of bribery and damaging the interests of a government institution. Reasons for the verdict were not available.

The defendants - Chinoy, LS, BS, AS, SM and RC - were arrested after an investigation by the Dubai Financial Audit Department into the sale of plots at the World Islands development.

Chinoy was arrested in March, 2009, and charged with accepting Dh22m in bribes from LS, BS, AS, and SM and funnelling the money through RC's accounts.

Prosecutors also accused Chinoy of causing losses of up to Dh11m to the Nakheel property group.

"According to the request we received, the defendant was found to have been selling plots on the World Islands without following company procedures," a state security official said.

LS was the only one of Chinoy's five co-defendants present for the hearing yesterday.

Both LS and Chinoy denied the charges when the case was first brought to court in 2009.

The case against Chinoy was dismissed by Dubai Criminal Court last November.

Chinoy jumped from his apartment on the 29th floor of the Address Downtown at about 2am on July 8.

He had lived at the luxury hotel for four weeks after he was released on bail following more than a year in detention.