Jailed former minister acquitted

Dubai // A former UAE minister of state has been acquitted by the Dubai misdemeanours Appeal Court of unlawfully taking control of an IT company, and cleared on charges of deception and fraud. The minister, KF, was sentenced in February to two years in jail by the Dubai Misdemeanours Court for taking control of an IT company belonging to his late Lebanese business partner. KF was accused of deceiving his late partner's sister into believing he owned 51 per cent of the company. Two other defendants in the case, the company's manager, SH, a US citizen, and the company's finance director BN, an Indian national were cleared of any wrongdoing. The court of first instance had previously quashed the prosecution's appeal against the minister's son, MB, charged in the same case. "We were always confident in the judiciary's impartiality and confident that our client would be exonerated of any wrongdoing," said Sameer Jaafar, the minister's lawyer. [e-mail]