LONDON // The Emirati victim of an armed attack in London thought he was close to death as seven robbers wearing masks from the horror film Scream threatened him with a gun and a knife as he lay on the floor.
Ali Al Tamimi, in London with his wife for a check-up after treatment for stomach cancer, said he could not stop reliving the nightmare in the early hours of Tuesday, saying it was “straight out of a movie”.
Mr Al Tamimi, 51, was speaking to The National in a London hotel near the flat to which the couple were moved by the UAE Embassy. They are under police protection. He revealed further details of the attack, the second on Emiratis within a fortnight.
“Believe me, if anyone had told me this story I would not believe it because of the number of people in the attack, the weapons involved,” he said, still visibly shaken from his ordeal. “I was thinking I was in a dream, I am in the movies.”
Mr Al Tamimi, a grandfather from Dubai, said his wife, 47, had been unable to sleep for the past four nights as she recalled one of the men bursting into the bedroom of the Paddington flat as she prayed, pressing a knife against her neck and demanding cash and jewellery.
“They said: ‘I will kill your husband if you don’t give me your money’,” he said. He was sitting in the living area with a friend when they burst in.
“Then about 12.30am somebody rang the bell, the intercom. I picked up and said ‘hello’, but no answer. After 10 minutes we heard noise. They hit the door with a hammer. After that I see the first guy with a knife.
“I was thinking there was one or two. When I saw him come inside of the flat he came near to me and I closed the door over his hand. My friend helped me to push the door.
“But then we saw four or five people. I was scared for me, my wife, my friend. They starting to shout at us. One was trying to hit me with the knife three times but I am in his face. He had a mask, like from the Scream film. Like the movies.”
Mr Al Tamimi said four or five of the men wore the black and white masks from the slasher movie.
“They said, ‘Where is the money?’ My wife was inside the bedroom. I was praying they would not hear her. But there heard her as she did not understand what was happening and said ‘Ali, Ali, what is happening?’”.
“They go to the bedroom and I was still on the ground and they were tying to hit me and my friend was down also.
“When I pushed the mask over his face he started to become angry. One of them said, ‘He saw your face. Hit him.’ The other guy said, ‘Shoot him’.”
Mr Al Tamimi said he believed he might die as he lay on the floor.
“I prayed,” he said, closing his eyes as he relived the moment.
But then, he said, there was a sign from God.
“They go again to hit me with the knife and with a gun, and we were lucky there was a noise from an ambulance.”
The siren spooked the gang, who fled, he said.
“Before they were planning to hit me again but they heard the noise and they left. You don’t believe seven people carrying a knife, a hammer and guns – a real gun.”
Mr Al Tamimi said he and his family had been visiting London for 35 years.
“We stay everywhere in London nothing has happened like this. Of course I am still having nightmares. My family feels very bad. My wife has not slept in four days. She keeps hearing the voice of one of the men.”
He said neighbours had phoned police to report a disturbance and officers arrived very quickly.
Westminster police said the gang made off with two mobile phones, nearly Dh19,000 in cash, two passports, handbags and a bank card.
One man was armed with a black handgun and one with a silver pistol. Three stood outside the rented flat while the robbery took place.
Investigations are continuing.
Scotland Yard confirmed yesterday that no arrests had yet been made.
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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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Pots for the Asian Qualifiers
Pot 1: Iran, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, China
Pot 2: Iraq, Uzbekistan, Syria, Oman, Lebanon, Kyrgyz Republic, Vietnam, Jordan
Pot 3: Palestine, India, Bahrain, Thailand, Tajikistan, North Korea, Chinese Taipei, Philippines
Pot 4: Turkmenistan, Myanmar, Hong Kong, Yemen, Afghanistan, Maldives, Kuwait, Malaysia
Pot 5: Indonesia, Singapore, Nepal, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Mongolia, Guam, Macau/Sri Lanka
