DUBAI // A Dubai Land Department admin officer serving a three-year jail term for asking for a Dh70,000 bribe to process the sale of three flats will serve just one year, the Court of Appeal has ruled.
Records state that Emirati A B, 27, received applications for three flats that were being sold at less than market price. In return for not sending Land Department staff to evaluate the flats, he first asked the company selling them to give him a flat and hire his friend. Prosecutors said A B later changed his mind and instead asked for Dh70,000 in return for his services.
“I was visiting the Land Department when the defendant handed me the CV of an Egyptian man, telling me he was his friend who left the country but would like to come back and he wanted me to help hire him,” said 26-year-old Emirati, M K, a manager at the real estate company. “I told him I would forward the CV to my managers and he said if I did he would facilitate our procedures.”
About three weeks later A B asked M K for a flat. M K said A B then stalled his paperwork and told him he was once given Dh70,000 for prioritising a company’s applications.
The defendant allegedly asked M K to register the flat in the name of another man and handed him the man’s passport copy.
“We reported him to police,” M K said.
In April, Dubai Criminal Court had sentenced A B to three years in jail and fined him Dh70,000.
tzriqat@thenational.ae
