Haigh jailed for 2 years

Will his time spent in custody up to now count as part of the 2 years or is it 2 years from now?

I would hope they consider his time as served...!

Five bob says they don't though.

Ar se holes!

Mixed feelings on this one. Not sure what to think. The facts are so sketchy.

Sketchy facts or not, it sounds like Haigh hasn't even been allowed to mount the most basic of defences to plead his case.

There's no way the conviction decision can have been fairly reached.

Whether he had his hand in the till or not, he should at least be allowed to plead his case.

If they didn't have the oil, our government would be up in arms about human rights.

Haigh had around 9 minutes of court time, wasn't allowed to call a expert witness and was sentenced whilst not in attendance by a single judge.

It also sounds like they're not counting the 13 months served without trial so far.

Sorry, but if you think he's been treated fairly, then you're a disgrace to humanity. If he was in an EU country they'd have been done for a violation of human rights. The UK government should have been on to this one and fought his corner.

If one is content to make snap judgments based on internet evidence perhaps one should get a job within the UAE legal system.
And by the way 4% of the Emirates revenue comes from oil.

ah - fair enough (on looking it's actually 7% oil revenue). For "oil" substitute "money".

Successive governments conveniently seem to ignore human rights violations in wealthy Arab states due to their wealth, be it in oil, land or investments. It sickens me to the core.

Tony - I was merely commenting on a news article on what I take to be a reasonably reputable website. It wasn't a "snap" decision -- this farce of a legal process has been heading down the same road since Haigh was arrested over a year ago. This is just one more example of how shoddily he's being treated. I haven't seen ANY reports saying how fairly he is being treated - have you?

Perhaps you have more information that you might want to share with us?

I have only what I've read on the interweb and mixed feelings. I have no love arab law or any law for that matter. And as for the worldwide banking/financial sectors I would trust them with anything. I think there's a strong case to jail a large percentage of them right to the top, for a long time. And to think the UK and US and the West in general are not involved in side stepping our own laws when it suits them is somewhat naive. Extraordinary rendition and all that

Agree entirely - wasn't suggesting that the government doesn't operate the same 'blind eye' at home when it suits them.
I'd rather take my chances with UK law than UAE law any day though from the sound of it.