DUBAI // The lawyer of four men accused of being part of a car theft gang claims they have been acquitted of the same charge three times previously.
"Your honour this is our fourth time in court over the same charge," the defence lawyer Saeed Al Ghailani told presiding Judge Maher Salama in the Criminal Court of First Instance yesterday. "The list of prosecution witnesses and persons involved are the same, I would like to request more time to review how this case has been put together now," he said.
Mr Al Ghailani is representing the Jordanian businessman AA, 36; the Pakistani manager MM, 24; the Syrian computer engineer MH, 34; and Lebanese man BB, 48.
Prosecutors claim that the men were part of a gang that would rent luxury and saloon cars before exporting them with the use of forged documents. They are alleged to have bribed a fifth person to stamp and sign export papers for the vehicles at the RTA.
An investigating officer said that in 2008 police had tracked a stolen Range Rover via a Global Positioning System and discovered it was heading for the Ghuweifat border crossing despite its engine being turned off.
"We informed the border control and the car was found on a trailer with other cars. When we investigated we discovered that some of the other cars were also being shipped with fraudulent papers," he said.
Police arrested MM, who owned the trailer company that transported the vehicles. The other men were said to be tied to the case through MM.
The court adjourned the case to February 29.
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Banned items
Dubai Police has also issued a list of banned items at the ground on Sunday. These include:
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Political flags or banners
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England v West Indies
England squad for the first Test Cook, Stoneman, Westley, Root (captain), Malan, Stokes, Bairstow, Moeen, Roland-Jones, Broad, Anderson, Woakes, Crane
Fixtures
1st Test Aug 17-21, Edgbaston
2nd Test Aug 25-29, Headingley
3rd Test Sep 7-11, Lord's
Washmen Profile
Date Started: May 2015
Founders: Rami Shaar and Jad Halaoui
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Laundry
Employees: 170
Funding: about $8m
Funders: Addventure, B&Y Partners, Clara Ventures, Cedar Mundi Partners, Henkel Ventures
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, Leon.
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
Bloomberg
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