DUBAI // An admin officer at the Dubai Land Department has been jailed for three years for asking for Dh70,000 in return for facilitating the sale of three apartments.
Records state that Emirati A B, 27, received applications for three apartments 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 an apartment and to hire his friend.
Prosecutors said that A B later changed his mind and instead asked for Dh70,000 in return for his services.
“I was visiting the Land Department, which is something I do often, when the defendant took me to the car park and handed me the CV of an Egyptian man, telling me that it was his friend who left the country but would like to come back and that he wanted me to help hire him,” said 26-year-old Emirati, M K, who is a manager at the real estate company.
“I told him I will forward the CV to my managers and he said if I did so, he will facilitate our procedures.”
M K said he was ordered to ignore A B’s request. Around three weeks later, when M K returned to the department, A B asked him for a flat.
“He told me that a Russian man rewarded him with a flat for facilitating his procedures and that he wants a flat from my company if he was going to do the same,” said M K.
M K said A B then stalled on dealing with his paperwork and told him how he was once given Dh70,000 by a company for prioritising their applications.
“He called me on April 24 and told me to prepare the apartment and then he will finalise the three applications for my company,” said A B.
The defendant allegedly asked M K not to register the flat in his name but the name of another man and handed him the man’s passport copy.
“When this happened, we headed to the police and reported him and they arrested him,” said M K.
In the first hearing at Dubai Criminal Court, A B did not enter a plea.
On Sunday he was sentenced to 3 years in jail and fined Dh70,000.
tzriqat@thenational.ae
