Trapped: A Couple's Five Years of Hell in Dubai

by Lee, M

  On 25 February, after having discussed with Marcus and John Sneddon how to word the response, I wrote back:

  Stuart, I have discussed yours and Soheil’s proposal with Marcus and he has simply said that his liberty is not a ‘bargaining chip’.

  I wholeheartedly agree with this considering that all parties acknowledge that Marcus has not done anything wrong. Similarly it is near impossible for Marcus to give a ‘stat dec’ about something that all parties agree he wasn’t involved in.

  Personally, I believe, when someone makes incorrect statements, and they become aware (and even admit) those statements are incorrect, there’s a moral obligation to correct them unconditionally. This has added weight given that Sunland is a public company and you are an elected MP. If Soheil, or you, change your positions or demands let me know. Suffice to say I am very disappointed with this outcome considering what was discussed and said at our meeting.

  On 25 February Robert emailed me one last time to say, ‘Thanks Rosemary, I’m just the postbox on this discussion so I will pass your comments on’. That was the last communication we had. Stuart Robert is now Australia’s Assistant Minister for Defence.

  MARCUS

  In Dubai the judge had said he would deliver the judgement on 26 November. But when that hearing rolled around his ‘decision’ was to refer the case to a so-called Expert Committee. Mr Ali explained this would be a group from the Ruler’s Court (which is where chief investigator Mohammed Mustafa had come from; a so-called ‘expert’ himself, he seemed to have now disappeared from the case). They would study the case, perhaps make new investigations of their own, then advise the judge of their findings sometime in the future. We just had to wait.

  Meanwhile the civil case Sunland had launched in Australia had already run its course, as had an appeal against the judgement. Among other fascinating revelations, Abedian admitted under oath that when the full extent of the Dubai bribery investigations emerged, James Packer, then a Sunland director, had demanded the immediate liquidation of the company. We heard about some of what went on from John Sneddon, who flew down to hear the case.

  JOHN SNEDDON

  I’ve been a lawyer for twenty years. I’ve never, ever seen evidence by witnesses like that given by David Brown and Soheil Abedian. They were tying themselves in knots under cross-examination. Every day, in The Australian Financial Review, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian, there were stories about ‘Witness admits so-and-so is wrong’ and ‘Witness admits pair held on false claims’. It was a total bloodbath.

  After nine days of Sunland’s chairman and their number one man in Dubai being completely discredited, the lawyers for Joyce and Reed stood up and said, ‘Your Honour, we have no case to answer. We don’t propose to lead any evidence.’ And they packed their bags and just walked out. And indeed, when the judge handed down the 297-page ruling five months later, at the beginning of June 2012, he found against Sunland, saying they had fallen at the first hurdle and they gave ‘inconsistent and unreliable evidence’. Neither Brown nor Abedian, he said, could be regarded as ‘a reliable witness of truth’. (There are extracts from the judgement at the back of this book.)

  JULIE

  It was great to see Sunland being finally exposed, but the pleasure we took from it was a very bitter one. It didn’t matter to the Dubai authorities that Sunland had been found by an Australian court to have lied about the facts of the D17 deal any more than their late attempt to correct matters with the ‘exculpatory letter’ mattered. The whole stupid, frustrating, soul-destroying process in Dubai continued to roll on, crushing us beneath its wheels.

  I wrote this to try to keep me going: ‘Little by little we claw our way up the dark pit of injustice. Huge tears of despair fall, strip away our resolve. People trick and torture and taunt us. We hang on.’

  Marcus was summoned to appear before the ‘expert committee’ on 24 December 2012. I went with him, as did one of the lawyers from Mr Ali’s practice, Dr Rashad. The expert committee was one man, who asked Marcus, ‘Were you involved in Sunland’s and Prudentia’s negotiations and arrangements?’

  Marcus answered, ‘No, never.’

  And ‘Did you have any other transactions with any of the parties?’

  ‘No.’

  That was it. To our amazement Dr Rashad said he thought the meeting had gone well.

  The expert committee report was due to the judges at the end of January (when yet another new judge joined the panel). It wasn’t ready then, or at the end of February, or at the end of March. Yes, it was 2013. Another year had begun and we were still trapped like flies in amber.

  MARCUS

  At the end of April 2013 I was called to another expert committee meeting and Julie came with me with another lawyer from Mr Ali’s practice, Mr Nabawi. This time there were four men, including the one we had met previously, and they had documents spread across the whole of a twelve-seater board table. They peppered me with questions, more often than not speaking over the top of one another in the process of examining me. The questions weren’t just about the D17 deal, they also covered completely unrelated business cases I had prepared as far back as 2006. After 30 minutes of this, I had a chance to make a brief statement on my own behalf.

  I finished by saying, ‘There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t ask myself what more should I have done’, to which the lead expert said, ‘Maybe you should have asked Sunland for your cut of the money’, which his fellow experts found very funny. Then they offered us tea.

  After more than two hours of scrutiny we walked away feeling shattered. The next hearing was 15 April and the judge said he had received the experts’ report. We got a copy and Julie sent it off to be translated. I could not force myself to read it, but Julie did at work and when she had she excitedly said, ‘It’s great for us! I can’t believe it!’

  Their findings were that I had received no money, I had no part in the deal between Sunland and Prudentia, and everything I had done at Nakheel, including preparing the D17 business case, had been correct and above board. I made her tell me this a few times before I started to believe it. It wasn’t a ticket home — the judges still had to decide what to do with the expert committee’s view, but it was incredibly hopeful compared to the position we’d been in previously. We were battered, we were bruised, but we weren’t out yet.

  May 20, 2013 was judgement day. Again, I dropped Julie at the courts and drove to Karen’s office where I paced, feeling sick as I waited for Julie’s call. After an eternity my phone rang. It was Julie, but she couldn’t speak. She choked out, ‘Good news,’ before handing the phone to Mohammed Al Zari, another of Mr Ali’s lawyers.

  ‘You are innocent of all charges,’ he said. ‘You are free!’

  Julie, Karen and Karen’s mother, Mary, rushed back to the office and we hugged and jumped in a circle and wept tears of happiness.

  When I could breathe again I phoned John and shared the wonderful news. He raced off to tell some of the journalists who had been following the case from Australia. Julie sent texts to our families and her work friends. Our Facebook supporters posted the news online. Then I contacted Eric Campbell from Foreign Correspondent, who had timed another Dubai visit hoping for exactly this news. We met up with him and filmed an interview as messages of love and congratulations poured in from all corners via email, text and Facebook. We went home and Skyped our families and John and his wife, Vanessa. They were all just as elated as we were.

  The news for Matt Joyce wasn’t so good: he and Angus Reed were each found guilty and sentenced to ten years’ jail and a USD25 million fine. (Anthony Brearley was acquitted.) I hated the idea of anyone facing the prospect of a Dubai prison, but I didn’t want to think about them now. This was our day.

  Mr Ali warned us that the prosecutors were allowed to lodge an appeal. Unlike the Australian court system where an appeal had to be based on the fact that one of the parties felt the judge got the facts wrong or didn’t follow legal precedents, here
no grounds had to be given. Essentially they could appeal because they simply didn’t like having the decision go against them. There was a fifteen-day window and every day our hope and anxiety built. On day fourteen the suspense was over — the prosecutors lodged an appeal against all the decisions.

  Mr Ali tried to reassure us that the appeal was just a process and we shouldn’t worry about it, but that was impossible. We returned to court for appeal hearings in July 2013, and again in September. As well as the prosecutors lodging their appeal, Matt Joyce appealed against his sentence. These appeals were consolidated and heard at the same time. John became my source of ‘therapy’ during all this. I would write long, impassioned emails to him and he would write back or Skype me, bringing me back around so I could calm down. Finally the appeal decision date was set: 20 October 2013.

  JOHN SNEDDON

  In terms of their emotions, Marcus and Julie went from the penthouse to the basement pretty quickly when the appeal was lodged. During the two weeks after the acquittal, we kept saying, ‘Look, the prosecution tend to appeal in the overwhelming majority of cases.’ But I was working the media feverishly, making statements about how, based upon the compelling nature of the judgement, we assume they won’t appeal. And at the same time, I was asking Bob Carr, the Foreign Minister, to do all that he could. He made a number of public statements and, I have to assume, private representations. But at the end of the day, they did appeal, which was devastating, absolutely devastating.

  The scheduled appeal decision date was postponed because of the Eid holiday. It was rescheduled for the first of November, but that was another holiday so it was delayed again, this time by a week. At the eleventh hour Sunland sent a modified version of the exculpatory letter, this one addressed to a prosecutor (though not the one involved in this case). They had comprehensively lost their own appeal in their civil case in Australia. So now, perhaps concerned that if they didn’t do something they would be forever condemned, they sent this through. As Ali Shamsi said, it was too little too late. We had needed it five years earlier.

  MARCUS

  On 10 November the decision was to be handed down. As had become our ritual, I dropped Julie at the courts and drove to Karen’s office and Karen and Mary met Julie at the court. Julie and I were each wearing another one of the white cotton-thread Buddhist prayer bands that Indrani tied around our wrists and on Dudley’s collar before every hearing. They had to stay on until the whole thing was over. We were wearing quite a collection by now.

  Again, the wait was unbearable. I fully expected further delays. Instead a text message came through: ‘Prosecution’s appeal rejected’. (Matt’s appeal against his conviction had also been successful.)

  Because this was Dubai and nothing was the way you would expect it to be, the prosecutors could appeal yet again. They had 30 days to do so. There would still be unpleasant suspense for that whole period, but nothing like the black cloud we had been living under. After two acquittals — both unanimous across the three judges’ panels — we were in a position of strength for the first time in years.

  Later that week Dr Rashad, who had moved on from Mr Ali’s practice, called to congratulate us on the appeal decision. He passed on the interesting rumour that Mohammed Mustafa, the audit head who had led the case in its early days, had been arrested, accused of improper behaviour in connection with the cases he had investigated. We could never find confirmation of this, but that didn’t mean it didn’t happen, not in this crazy place.

  JULIE

  I tried to take my mind off the prospect of another appeal by working as much as possible. It was six months since Marcus had been acquitted, four years since he had been released from prison, and more than seven years since we had decided that accepting Marcus’s Dubai job offer was a great step in achieving our goals and securing our future.

  We could access basic details of the Dubai court system online, and search for updates to the case, such as next hearing date or any related cases being lodged. Marcus would call or text me at work numerous times each day to see if an appeal had been lodged. We didn’t dare start packing up yet. We’d been so close before, only to find ourselves sinking again in the quicksand. We were taking nothing for granted.

  Tuesday, 10 December 2013 was Day 30 of the appeal window. Every half an hour I would check the court system on my work computer. By the end of the day nothing was showing up on the system. We called Mr Ali and he advised us to wait two more days just to be sure, in case the paperwork was sitting on someone’s desk and just hadn’t been logged.

  By Day 32 there was still nothing showing up online. We thought the best way to test it was to apply for the return of Marcus’s passport (mine had been returned a month or so after Marcus’s first acquittal but because of the prosecution appeal they had rejected our request for his to be returned at the same time) and to get back our bail money.

  MARCUS

  A friend of Karen’s gave us the Arabic wording for the application and we submitted it online. We knew it would take a number of days to process, either way. At the end of the third day we went online to check, just in case, and there it was: ‘Approved’. The release we felt was absolutely incredible. We could have walked back to Australia on the clouds.

  The next morning we took a print-out of the approval down to the bail department in the prosecutions building, next door to the main courts. It was the first time we’d walked in there without shaking in fear. After getting an official copy from the main desk, we were sent first to the passports storage area. The assistant went off to find it amid the huge number they seemed to have there and in just a few moments came back with what we could see was my passport, in a small plastic bag. We signed for it and my passport was handed over — after all this time, we were holding the key to freedom in our hands.

  Then we went to the bail return clerk. This was more like the Dubai inefficiency we expected. The man we were told to see said it would take a few days and he would call us when it was ready, but there was something in his manner that inspired no confidence. After initially refusing to speak to Julie as she was female, he did a complete reversal and said that since she had deposited the money only she could sign for it.

  By day four we still hadn’t heard from him. We did, however, wake to the news that the Joyces had arrived back in Melbourne. That was curious, since we had started the bail-return process at the first available opportunity but were still days away from getting the money. It looked like they had left Dubai without waiting for the return of AED1 million (now worth around AUD305,000) in bail.

  We went back to the bail clerk to try again. He definitely seemed to be stalling us. Mr Ali was on leave so we decided to try Mohammed Al Zari, whom we had got to know quite well. He went down to talk to the clerk and a passing police officer, overhearing the conversation in Arabic, joined in. That seemed to do the trick. Mohammed came out and said the reason for the stalling was that the clerk had been waiting for us to offer him a ‘gift’. Now the process was really underway, but it might take up to a week longer. With a sigh we realised we wouldn’t be home for Christmas as we had hoped. One more milestone missed, along with the funerals of family members who had died while we were so far away.

  Still, the end was in sight. We could start making the arrangements to get our furniture shipped and have Dudley begin the quarantine-testing he needed before he could be shipped back. He would stay in boarding kennels for the testing process, then join us as soon as he was cleared. Indrani had organised a new employer — a family with children who had room for her in their house — and we helped her move her things into storage while they prepared her room. We would miss her as she would us, but we vowed we would all meet up again at some point in Sri Lanka and even try to arrange for her to one day visit Australia.

  Finally, the cheque for AED1 million was ready. It took a couple of days to clear and then we were able to pay Mr Ali’s last bill, as well as the rent we owed and the interest on it, all our other debts and for
plane tickets to fly out on 17 January. Julie had given notice to her work as soon as the appeal period finished. Her last working day was 16 January.

  As a precaution, we also requested and got a clearance certificate from the courts and the police CID. This was official confirmation that the case was over and we were free to leave. We then had to take this to Jebel Ali Police Station where it needed to be recorded and logged into the system. The officer on duty there told us he would take care of this and we would be able to fly out without a hitch.

  It was still dark when we left for the airport on the morning of our departure. We were excited but nervous, and sad that Dudley wouldn’t be joining us for a month. Even though we had every official clearance and all the other paperwork we could think of, we wouldn’t really be able to relax until we were in the air. Indrani and Karen and Karen’s newly adopted daughter, Ruby, came to wave us off, and insisted on waiting until they had seen us safely through passport control.

  We said our goodbyes, took some final photos and went to the immigration exit desk where our passports would be checked before we passed through to the passengers-only area. The woman behind the counter stamped Julie’s first, then took mine. She typed in my details, looked at her screen for too long, then asked Julie and me to step to one side. We couldn’t believe it — at every turn, another trap waited.

  Another official came up and joined the woman in looking at the screen. I proffered the clearance letter. The man told me not to interrupt and turned back to the screen. He then led us into a small room off to the side of the public area. As we were walking we each phoned the Australian consulate to tell them what was happening: we had been prevented from leaving. For two hours officials came in and out of the room. No-one would tell us who they were and no-one would tell us what was happening, although we had now missed the flight.