ASIL NADIR, the founder of Polly Peck International who fled to northern Cyprus in 1993, has returned to Britain to face trial on fraud charges.
The former executive’s flight arrived at Luton Airport, according to prosecutors. The Serious Fraud Office, which prosecutes major financial crime, claims Mr Nadir embezzled £30 million (€36.6 million).
Mr Nadir fled the UK after being charged with theft and false accounting. Polly Peck was a food packaging firm that collapsed in 1990 when it was unable to pay its creditors. Administrators found more than £700 million was unrecoverable from the company’s subsidiaries. In an interview with the BBC yesterday, Mr Nadir said he is “hoping to get a fair trial”.
“I spent from 1990 to 1993 battling with immense injustice,” he said. “My health had deteriorated and I felt that, at that point, to save my life I had to leave.”
Judge David Bean last month agreed to grant Mr Nadir bail if he returned to Britain. Mr Nadir must be fitted with an electronic security tag, according to his bail conditions. He can’t leave London and must appear at the Old Bailey criminal court on September 3rd.
Mr Nadir bought into Polly Peck in 1980, when it was an ailing textiles firm. It became a stock market darling in the 1980s, its share price rising more than 100 times, as Mr Nadir built an empire that included the Del Monte fruit business and the Sansui electronics firm. – (Bloomberg)
