A recent report by the Nigerian newspaper, Premium Times, revealed that the Nigerian businessman Abdulrahman Bashar has been sentenced to one year in prison by a Dubai court for his involvement in a fraudulent scheme.
He also had a running-in with the law in the United Kingdom back in 2020, which led to a 10-month sentence.
In a February 2020 ruling, Justice Butcher of the England and Wales High Court sentenced Mr Bashar to 10 months of jail time for violating various court orders in a lawsuit brought by Sahara Energy Resources.
Currently, he has been sentenced to a Dubai prison for a financial scheme tied to his interactions with the oil and gas company CI Energy Company.
The UAE court gave the ruling on January 30, 2025, per court records obtained by PREMIUM TIMES, although Mr. Bashar, 48, was informed but did not appear for the trial.
The Nigerian businessman was sentenced by the UAE’s public prosecution for issuing seven checks totaling 126.45 million dirhams, issued on an Emirates Islamic Bank account, and having a mismatched signature.
The prosecution requested that Mr. Bashar face charges under current regulations after accusing him of issuing the checks by “deliberately signing and drafting them in a way that prevents their cashing.”
The court also, based on evidence presented to it, such as statements by Jamal Awad Nasser Hussein (the agent of CI Energy), copies of the cheques, and statements of account, highlighted that the cheques had been returned unpaid on presentation at Emirates Islamic Bank due to a disparity in Mr Bashar’s signature.
“It is established that the crime of issuing a cheque is realized merely by giving the cheque to the beneficiary knowing that there is no balance available for withdrawal,” the court said during the proceeding led by Judge Hussein Hamdi.
“The court sees from the examination of the documents that the incident within the scope of what it has extracted in the aforementioned manner is sufficiently established against the accused to convict him,” it added.
