By Watchmann

A Nigerian billionaire, Abdulrahman Bashar, has been sentenced by a Dubai court to one year imprisonment for a financial crime involving CI Energy Company, an oil and gas firm.

TheNewsGuru reports that the UAE court found Bashar who is also the owner of of Rahmaniya Group and Ultimate Oil & Gas guilty of issuing seven cheques with a combined value of 126.45 million dirhams, drawn on an Emirates Islamic Bank account, with mismatched signatures.

According to court documents obtained by Premium Times, the Nigerian businessman was accused of deliberately signing the cheques in a manner that prevented them from being cashed.

Bashar, 48, refused to appear in court for the trial despite being notified countlessly. During trial, the prosecution presented evidence which included statements from Jamal Awad Nasser Hussein, an agent of CI Energy, as well as duplicates of the cheques and bank account statements.