This Wednesday, the Abu Dhabi Criminal Court had found 28 of the defendants guilty in the embezzlement of AED 635 million from a single Abu Dhabi bank. Those that were found guilty were awarded jail terms that all ranged from one year to 15 years of imprisonment.

The court has given strict orders to the convicts to pay an amount of AED 9 million which the bank has been unable to recover yet. The convicts have been convicted on the grounds of conducting activities that were fraudulent and misappropriating the huge amount on multiple different occasions from the bank.

Apart from the AED 9 million that the convicts have to pay to the bank, the judge has ordered the convicts to pay back the full amount of AED 635 million as a penalty. This event had occurred last year and only surfaced now. A total of 33 people all ranging from various countries that include American, Russian, Indian, Canadian and Pakistani, were arrested.

The court has also ordered the convicts to pay an amount of AED 21,000 each in temporary civil compensation to the bank, in addition to all the court fees.

Eight of the main defendants were awarded straight 15 years of imprisonment and 10 of the other defendants were slapped with 10 years of straight imprisonment. The court also convicted nine other defendants to seven years of jail time, who all transferred the amount directly into their bank accounts, while the last convict in the case was awarded only a single year’s time in prison.

The court has also given the order to have all of them deported after serving their jail term once when they finish paying back the whole amount.

There are five of those that the court had decided to acquit in the case after carefully finding out that they were not involved with the case directly and neither did they participate in any of the illegal activities by the convicts in an indirect way either. They have been proved not guilty from various testimonies and documents, that stated they were not involved with any of the fraudulent activities.

The court also reveals that these five people who were acquitted had received the money into their bank accounts, but upon knowing the source, these five had immediately informed the entities concerned about them and transferred the amounts back to the concerned bank.