Courts

Prison for couple who conceived outside of wedlock

They say they want to wed, and baby was meant to pressure family into approving marriage.

ABU DHABI // A couple who had sex out of wedlock to pressure the woman's father into approving their marriage were both sentenced to prison yesterday.

KA, 19, Emirati, was sentenced to six months in prison. Her would-be husband, AM, Omani, was sentenced to 100 lashes and one year in prison.

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KA said she was desperate to marry AM. When her father refused his proposal, they decided to get pregnant to pressure him, she said yesterday after the verdict in the Criminal Court of First Instance.

KA is considered a minor because, as a woman, she must be 21 to be considered an adult. However, under Sharia'a law she is considered an adult because she has been married before, and could file a lawsuit against her father to strip him of his guardianship, said her attorney, Ali Al Abbadi.

If that happens, the judge can approve her marriage, he said.

In previous hearings, both KA and AM had confessed to sex out of wedlock, saying they were ready to face the penalties as long as they could get married, because KA is five months pregnant.

At the last hearing, KA withdrew her confession, although AM did not. She was sentenced to six months in prison and he was sentenced to 100 lashes and one year.

The Sharia'a penalty for sex outside of marriage, which is 100 lashes for single people and stoning for those who are married, is only applied if the defendants confess to the act four times or if there were four witnesses.

KA has three months left on her sentence because of the time she already has spent in jail. She said her father wants to put her baby in an orphanage and have AM deported; the judge did not include deportation in AM's verdict.

"I will stay in prison until they find me a solution to marry him. I will not go back to my father's house or give up my baby," she said.

hdajani@thenational.ae

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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

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