A British property tycoon hailed as one of Dubai’s most successful entrepreneurs after buying a £43 million (US$66,360 million) island in the shape of Great Britain has been jailed for seven years for bouncing checks and withholding payments.
Safi Qurashi, from Balham, south London, was convicted last month in the United Arab Emirates of signing checks worth more than £50 million without sufficient funds and canceling another check as he moved to complete three property deals.
His imprisonment comes two years after he bought the 4.5 hectare island that is part of the World, a man-made archipelago of 300 reclaimed sandbanks in the Gulf, fashioned into the shape of the globe’s landmasses.
Qurashi is appealing to the emirate’s royal ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, claiming that his convictions are the result of a miscarriage of justice.
He is one of a growing number of Britons caught out in Dubai by laws that hand down jail sentences for check fraud, which have been strictly enforced in the midst of collapsing house prices, negative equity and reduced credit.
Radha Stirling, the founder of Detained In Dubai, a British-based pressure group that fights injustices in the United Arab Emirates, is backing Qurashi’s claims that he has been jailed by a dogmatic court which failed to take his circumstances into account.
Qurashi, 41, the son of a Pakistan-born travel agent, was a successful businessman in London, developing one of the first internet cafes in Soho.
In 2004 he moved to Dubai, where he flourished, friends say. Four years later, his company, Premier Real Estate Bureau, turned over £400 million and employed 80 staff.
Friends say Qurashi was arrested alongside his business partner in January after a Russian investor attempted to cash two multimillion-pound checks, which both bounced.
Qurashi’s legal team claimed that the checks were presented after a property deal between the two parties had been completed and that the money was not owed.
He and his business partner were convicted on both charges in May and last month. He has also been convicted of a third offense — this time for stopping a check — and is due to appear before a court next month to appeal against three years of his seven-year sentence.
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