A Dubai court has sentenced Abdulrahman Bashar, the owner of Rahmaniya Group and Ultimate Oil and Gas, to one year in prison for financial misconduct in his dealings with CI Energy Company, an oil and gas firm.
This is the second time in less than five years that the 48-year-old businessman has been sentenced to jail, following a 10-month imprisonment issued by a United Kingdom court in 2020.
The recent ruling, given in absentia on January 25, 2025, was based on charges brought by the UAE public prosecution.
The court found Bashar guilty of issuing seven cheques totaling 126.45 million dirhams from an account at Emirates Islamic Bank, all of which were returned unpaid due to a signature mismatch.
According to the prosecution, Bashar deliberately signed and drafted the cheques in a way that prevented them from being cashed, urging the court to penalize him under existing laws.
The evidence presented during the trial included testimony from Jamal Awad Nasser Hussein, the agent of CI Energy, copies of the bounced cheques, and statements of account.
Based on these, the court concluded that the offence was clearly established.
“It is established that the crime of issuing a cheque is realised merely by giving the cheque to the beneficiary knowing that there is no balance available for withdrawal,” stated Judge Hussein Hamdi during the proceeding.
“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,” the judge added.
The court dismissed the defence’s attempt to question the evidence as a strategy to evade punishment, noting that Bashar’s denial was an effort to avoid accountability.
However, to prevent delays in the justice process, the court referred a related civil compensation claim to a competent civil court for further investigation.
A Previous Legal Battle
In 2020, Justice Butcher of the England and Wales High Court sentenced Bashar to 10 months in prison for defying multiple court orders in a case filed by Sahara Energy Resources.
Justice Butcher stated, “The basis of the sentence was that Mr Bashir had committed continuing breaches of the order of Mr Justice Robin Knowles of 1 August 2019 and of the order of Mr Justice Bryan of 6 September 2019.”
These court orders required Rahmaniya Oil and Gas to deliver 6,400.49 metric tonnes of gas to Sahara Energy Resources or its agent.
However, Bashar failed to comply and did not facilitate the release of the gas oil from the terminal, as revealed in court documents obtained by Premium Times.
Although Rahmaniya Oil and Gas was fined £500,000, the court indicated that Bashar’s sentence could be reduced to six months if he complied with the earlier order.
Additionally, Adebowale Aderemi, the company’s manager, was fined £10,000.
