DUBAI // A businessman who signed a deal to build a cinema in a Sharjah mall cheated his partners out of Dh4.6 million, a court has heard.
Indians V B, 51, and N K, 42, said they only discovered that Emirati A A, 32, had stolen the money when they turned up at the site where building had not begun.
N K told Dubai Criminal Court that he and V B had met A A in November 2011 and agreed to build the cinema at the mall.
In January 2012, the defendant sent his business partners cost estimates from his company.
They approved and agreed on Dh13.4m as capital for a new construction company. The next month they registered the company, with A A owning 51 per cent.
“V B wired Dh3.2m and I sent construction materials worth Dh1.6m to A A, which he used in another business venture of his,” said N K.
V B testified: “I came back to the UAE in November 2012 to check up on the work and when I visited the mall, I discovered that there was no construction.”
He spoke to A A, who showed receipts and cheques that seemed to prove everything was above board. But V B was suspicious.
“I went to see the mall administration. They told me they only received an initial payment worth Dh200,000 and nothing more,” he said.
“I also visited a consultant that was paid by our company only to find out that he was not paid by A A. When I checked the bank records, I found out that A A withdrew large amounts of money and he never deposited any.
“I confronted A A and demanded that he pay back the money, but he denied any wrongdoing.”
The Emirati is also charged with forging receipts for Dh350,000. On Monday, he denied all charges and the next hearing was set for May 29.
newsdesk@thenational.ae
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RESULT
Bayer Leverkusen 2 Bayern Munich 4
Leverkusen: Alario (9'), Wirtz (89')
Bayern: Coman (27'), Goretzka (42'), Gnabry (45'), Lewandowski (66')
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
ESSENTIALS
The flights
Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.
The hotels
Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.
The tours
A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages.
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Global state-owned investor ranking by size
1.
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United States
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2.
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China
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3.
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UAE
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4.
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Japan
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5
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Norway
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6.
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Canada
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Singapore
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Australia
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Saudi Arabia
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South Korea
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
THE CLOWN OF GAZA
Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
Rating: 4/5
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Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
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