Balham boy who bought 'Britain' is jailed (From Your Local Guardian)

Balham boy who bought 'Britain' is jailed

10:00am Sunday 1st August 2010 in Wandsworth By Eleanor Harding

A Balham property tycoon who went to Dubai and bought a £43m island in the shape of Great Britain has been jailed for seven years for bouncing cheques and withholding payments.

Safi Qurashi, 41, was convicted by a United Arab Emirates court of signing cheques worth more than £50m without sufficient funds and cancelling another cheque while he tried to complete three property deals.

His support team are currently appealing the decision and his 11-year-old daughter, Sara, has written an open letter to Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai.

She wrote: “All I want is justice for my dad. Then we can stay in Dubai and our life can go back to how it used to be. Please just take five minutes to ask about my dad. I know like my dad you must be really busy but my dad deserves justice. Please please help me.”

The news comes two years after he bought an 11-acre island which is part of The World, a man-made cluster of 300 sandbanks in the Gulf which can be seen from space.

He later appeared in an ITV documentary with Piers Morgan, and told the Wandsworth Guardian he hoped to be “an inspiration” to youngsters in the borough.

Now he has become one of a growing number Britons to be caught out by laws in Dubai which impose prison sentences for bounced cheques.

According to his prosecution team, he handed over cheques as a “security deposit” - which is common in Dubai - but they were never intended to be cashed.

Radha Stirling, the founder of Detained In Dubai, a British-based pressure group that fights injustices in the United Arab Emirates, is helping Mr Qurashi’s support team appeal the ruling.

She said: “Security cheques are used a lot in Dubai. People can end up doing a lot of jail time for cheques which should never have been cashed. In Safi’s case in particular, it just wasn’t right.

“People don’t know what they’re getting into when they go into business in Dubai. Many things aren’t told to British people when they travel there.”

British-born Mr Qurashi grew up in Ritherdon Road and used to work at his father’s tobacconist in Tooting Market after school.

At the age of 11, he won a scholarship to the independent Emanuel School, and after working for several years in business, he emigrated to Dubai with his family in 2004.

BACKGROUND: HOW THE WORLD COLLAPSED

The World project was once seen as a symbol of Dubai’s extravagance and wealth; now it is the embodiment of its failure.

When it was launched in 2003, rumours circulated that David Beckham, Rod Stewart, Michael Jackson and Prince Albert of Monaco were among the super-rich and celebrities interested in buying islands.

There was even speculation that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt had their eye on Ethiopia.

After the worldwide economic downturn, most of the islands remain undeveloped as floods of ex-pats return to their homelands less wealthy than they had hoped.