New jail term on fugitive banker

Manama, February 4, 2013

A fugitive bank executive has been handed an additional one-year jail sentence for embezzlement by a Bahrain court, a report said.

Former Unicorn Bank chief executive Majid Al Refai was convicted by the High Criminal Court yesterday (February 3), according to the report in the Gulf daily News.

However, he is believed to be abroad and was sentenced in absentia.

The same court cleared both Al Refai and his Canadian co-defendant Rob Little of forgery at yesterday's hearing due to lack of evidence.

Al Refai, from Kuwait, has already been sentenced to nine years behind bars in two other cases.

He was jailed for an additional year yesterday for hiding two documents that gave him power to veto board decisions, which he allegedly tricked board members into signing.

He is then said to have demanded $12.5 million to surrender that power.

Al Refai was previously convicted of money laundering and fraud by the High Criminal Court, which sentenced him in absentia to five years in jail and fined him BD50,000 ($129,363 million) last September.

He has also been jailed for four years in absentia in a separate case in which he was found guilty of embezzling BD10 million, destroying bank documents and denying partners access to documents by the Lower Criminal Court, which also fined him BD5,000.

Al Refai left the bank in August 2010 and a subsequent investigation conducted by consultancy Deloitte outlined several allegations against him.

Criminal action was launched after the bank filed an official complaint against him to authorities. – TradeArabia News Service

Tags: Bahrain | Jail | banker | High court | Unicorn Bank |