The Abu Dhabi Court of Appeal has sentenced a young perfume businessman to five years in prison on charges of facilitating prostitution for some women through perfume trade, money laundering, and attempting to conceal profits from crime by transferring it abroad.
The Public Prosecution assigned the accused (Arabic) to facilitate the prostitution of women, in return for financial wages, and provide them to unknown persons, to practice prostitution, and committed the crime of money laundering by deliberately concealing the reality of the proceeds of the crime and its source, location and movement, with the intent to disguise its source, by transferring funds to Outside the State through exchange companies, the prosecution demanded that the accused be punished in accordance with the indictment provisions contained in the referral order.
The case documents showed that the defendant sent money transfers amounting to 119 transfers to people in six Arab countries within 30 months through exchange centers worth more than 300 thousand dirhams.
During the trial, the defendant's lawyer, Hadia Hammad, sought the annulment of the appealed verdict, and once again acquitted the defendant of the charges against him, based on the absence of the elements of the money laundering crime, and the absence of evidence of the defendant committing this crime, as he owns a commercial shop. Perfumes, and transfers money for goods received from outside the State, after receipt and sale by way of payment.
The lawyer argued, the absence of the elements of the crime of exploitation of prostitution of unknown women, noting that the proof of that crime requires that the accused material action, but the case papers lacked any material evidence can be based on.