Asil Nadir told to pay back £5 million or serve six more years in jail

 
epa03362352 Former business tycoon Asil Nadir (L) leaves the the Old Bailey, after the jury retired to consider its verdict in the Polly Peck fraud case, London, Britain, 15 August 2012. Nadir is on trial at the Old Bailey accused of stealing some 34 million pounds from his Polly Peck business between 1987 and 1990. EPA/FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA
EPA
2 November 2012
WEST END FINAL

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Convicted fraudster Asil Nadir was today ordered by an Old Bailey judge to pay £5 million to his victims or face a further six years in jail.

Nadir, 71, was convicted in August of 10 counts of stealing £28 million from his Polly Peck business empire during the 1980s.

He had fled from Britain on the eve of his trial in 1993 and spent 17 years evading justice in Northern Cyprus.

He returned to Britain in 2010 to live in a £23,000-a-month Mayfair home and be driven to court in a chauffeured limousine.

He even bought a £44,000 Range Rover Evoque with personalised number plates as a birthday present for his wife Nur.

Nadir, who was made bankrupt after the collapse of Polly Peck in 1990,  claimed he was impoverished and his luxury lifestyle was being funded by the generosity of his friends and family.

But prosecutors insisted the tycoon was hiding his assets and described his claims to be penniless as a “sham” and “an affront to common sense”.

In a three-day hearing this week businessman Cankut Bagana told the court he had paid £4.8 million for Nadir’s living expenses and legal fees.

Nadir’s sister Bilge Nevzat said her brother had lived as a recluse for 17 years since his flight from Britain and had no business dealings.

This was contradicted when prosecutors quoted from her book, The Turquoise Conspiracy, in which she described Nadir working from an office overlooking the Bosphurus in Istanbul on a project which would make Polly Peck “look like a grocer’s store”.

In his ruling Mr Justrice Hodroyde described Mrs Nevzat’s evidence as “evasive and untruthful”.

“I cannot accept that such a proud and talented man as Mr Nadir living in a community which admired him greatly for two decades relied solely on subventions from his mother, his girlfriend and Mr Bagana – why would he impoverish and demean himself in that way?” asked the judge.

The £28 million Nadir was convicted of stealing would be worth more than £60 million today.

The judge said he was sure that Nadir had hidden resources to pay compensation and that the money should be paid within two years or his stay in prison would be extended.

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