(Indian Ocean News Letter)- IOG applies pressure on Abdourahman Boreh’s family
IOG applies pressure on Abdourahman Boreh’s family After sending a letter to decline the invitation from the British judge Julian Martin Flaux to appear as a witness in the trial in London of the Djibouti government against the businessman
Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh, President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh has turned his attention to Boreh’s family. According to our sources, the mayor of Djibouti and member of the Boreh family, Houssein Abdillahi
Kayad, has recently been put under observation by the Service de documentation et de sécurité (SDS,). His youngest brother, Aziz Boreh, had his passport confiscated on 26 September when he returned from Paris where he had gone for medical treatment. Despite asking his friend Hassan Saïd Khaireh aka Hassan Madobe, the head of national security, to intervene so his passport would be returned, Aziz Boreh was unable to go to Addis Ababa on 12 October.
IOG could be called as witness in Boreh trial On 11 September, the British High Court Judge, Julian Martin Flaux held another meeting with the lawyers for the two sides in the case brought by the Djibouti government against the businessman Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh, a former friend and major campaign contributor to President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh. The purpose of the meeting was to determine the list of witnesses and draw up a timetable for the judge to hear them ahead of the trial in May 2016. A lineup of Djibouti dignitaries went to Paris and London to prepare this meeting with their lawyers. The choice and the timing of the witness hearings is a major political issue because of the forthcoming presidential election in Djibouti in April 2016, in which IOG intends to run for a new mandate. The fact is, Boreh’s lawyers want the Djibouti president to be on the list of witnesses to be heard by Mr Justice Flaux. At present, IOG is contemplating participating via a videoconference from Ethiopia, where he goes regularly. But he wants to avoid having to comply with a possible summons by Mr Justice Flaux to go to London, which would have a negative impact on his election campaign. Although Boreh no longer has to face accusations of terrorism, which were dropped when they were shown to be unsubstantiated, he still has nevertheless to face charges of diverting funds. The Djibouti authorities are maintaining these charges against him in the affair concerning the award of the Doraleh Container Terminal franchise to the Emirates company DP World. Mr Justice Flaux wants the Djibouti government to establish that Boreh did indeed make his country lose money. One of the government arguments concerns the sums DP World paid Boreh, including an annual payment of $250,000. Boreh’s lawyers will present this as remuneration for his consulting activity throughout Africa.
Boreh affair: court rejects another request to freeze assets The British judge Julian Martin Flaux rejected on 6 May the case put by Djibouti’s lawyers,
the firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, for a freeze of the assets in Singapore of the FrenchDjibouti businessman Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh. The case was brought against the Hong Kong based company, Essence Management Ltd, plus a firm registered in the British Virgin Islands owned by a trust constituted by Abdourahman Boreh and his seven children, NetSupport Holdings Ltd. Previously, on 23 March, Mr Justice Flaux had partly lifted the freeze on Abdourahman Boreh’s assets in the case brought against him by the Djbiouti government for alleged embezzlement.
Boreh trial could lead to backlash against IOG The recent ruling from the English High Court in the Boreh affair is a blow to President
Ismaïl Omar Guelleh. The English Judge Julian Martin Flaux was very angry on 23 March when he gave his verdict in the case for embezzling funds that the Djibouti government had brought against Abdourahman
Mahmoud Boreh. He partially lifted the freeze on Boreh’s assets considering that the plaintiffs the economic intelligence investigators Kroll, the US law firm Gibson Dunn, and the Djibouti government had “deliberately misled” the English court and orchestrated “an abusive international campaign” against Boreh, accusing him of inciting terrorism. The judge noted some “particularly flagrant examples of reprehensible conduct very far from the standards expected in court from a Sovereign State”. Among the revelatory events according to Mr Justice Flaux, is the meeting in Dubai on 22 January 2014, when Tom EverettHeath, Kroll’s Europe, Middle East and Africa manager applied “improper commercial
pressure” on Boreh. He had proposed an amicable solution that “if he settled litigation (in fact for more than it was worth) he could avoid the risk of extradition to Djibouti”. Flaux added “the strategy of concealment from the courts that the conviction was unsafe … was developed at the meeting at Kroll on 27 August 2013”, attended by the general prosecutor, Djama Souleiman Ali, the inspector general, Hassan Issa Sultan (ION 1399), Tom EverettHeath and the Dubai law firm Al Tamimi. Linking these events, he even expressed the possibility that the contract for the Djibouti Doraleh Container Terminal from the Emirates company DP World had been rescinded following Dubai’s refusal to extradite Boreh to Djibouti (ION 1384).
N°1398 06/03/2015 Prosecution backtracks in case against Boreh The lawyer Peter Gray of the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher acting for the Djibouti government in its case against FrenchDjibouti businessman Abdourahman Boreh has had a decidedly bad week (ION 1392). During the court hearing in London chaired by the judge Mr Julian Martin Flaux, which lasted from 2 to 5 March instead of the two days expected, Gray and the other lawyers acting for the Djibouti government tried to show that they had acted in good faith when they reiterated the mistake that had led to Boreh being condemned by a Djibouti court to a long prison sentence on 25 June 2010 and even being put on the Interpol watch list. Abdourahman Boreh is a former supporter of President Ismael Omar Guelleh (IOG) but then became his rival and now lives in exile; the Djibouti government has levelled accusations against him for terrorism and embezzlement. The Djibouti court had found Boreh guilty of involvement in organising an attack in Djibouti on 4 March 2009 (a grenade was thrown at a Nougaprix supermarket) as he had telephoned the previous day to the alleged perpetrator. However, the telephone call recorded by the Djibouti intelligence services was made the day following the grenade attack and therefore could not show that Boreh was its instigator. Judge Flaux was particularly furious. He felt that the Djibouti lawyers had misled him in the hearing in September 2013 which had decreed a worldwide freeze of Boreh’s assets. This week, the Djibouti government, Peter Gray and the firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher each apologised to the London court, to Boreh and to his lawyers. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher has now retained the services of Philip Rocher to act for the Djibouti government in this case.
Why Dubai refused to extradite Boreh to Djibouti The ruling by the Dubai court against Djibouti’s request for the extradition of FrenchDjibouti businessman Abdourahman Boreh is a snub to President Ismail Omar Guelleh. The court chaired by Judge Aissa Mohamed Sharif issued its ruling in Arabic at the end of April (ION 1381). The Indian Ocean Newsletter has seen a translation of this document, which shows that the court had really distanced itself from the rulings of the Djibouti tribunal that had condemned Boreh for terrorism. The Dubai judge deemed that her country was not bound to execute the Djibouti court ruling, because it had “been made in absentia” and that “nothing contained in the documents submitted [by the Djibouti government – Ed] made it enforceable”. According to the Dubai court, an arrest warrant cannot be issued [against Boreh] “because such a measure must come from an investigating magistrate before trial and condemnation in absentia”.
N°1372 24/01/2014 Boreh’s assets put up for sale At the end of a protracted legal battle, the government is going to sell shares owned by the exiled opposition businessman, Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh. The finance minister Ilyas Moussa Dawaleh, whose brother Youssouf Moussa Dawaleh has just become chairman of the Chambre de Commerce de Djibouti (CCD), has requested 28 January that shares in Djibouti Dry Port FZCO held by two companies owned by Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh and his family are sold by auction on. The government is justifying its action by referring to court decisions dated May and October 2013. However, the legal documents obtained by The Indian Ocean Newsletter reveal a strange sleight of hand. To be sure, the court decision dated 14 May 2013 was issued in favour of a certain Marc Aurelio Gambelli who had instigated the proceedings in September 2012 against Boreh’s two firms with whom he had been in partnership in the firm Atelier Maritime. The court had found in Gambelli’s favour and awarded him FD 3.5 billion (€14.4 million) in damages. This verdict was subsequently “rectified” on 10 October, replacing the name of Gambelli with the State of Djibouti, on the grounds of a “material error”. With this “rectified” court decision in hand, Ilyas Moussa Dawaleh obtained an injunction to pay issued against Boreh, who did not respond. The minister therefore ordered Boreh’s shares to be put up for sale. The reserve price is set at $6,430,000 for the 643 shares in the firm Djibouti Dry Port FZCO held by Boreh International FZE, and $1,490,00 for the 149 shares in Djibouti Dry Port FZCO owned by Essences Management Ltd, another company owned by the Boreh family, registered in Hong Kong. Abdourahman Boreh, a former friend and business partner of president Ismaïl Omar Guelleh (IOG), has become over the last few years one of his staunchest opponents and lives in exile. He has been stuck in Dubai for the last few months, where the authorities have frozen his real estate assets of $5 million and confiscated his French passport. (ION 1366).
Boreh attacked in Singapore courts The legal proceedings by the Djibouti government to confiscate the assets of Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh have gone all the way round the world. After London then Dubai, where Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh is stuck after the authorities impounded his French passport (ION 1366) now the businessman and former friend of President Ismail Omar Guelleh who has been angry with him for many years, is attacked by the Singapore courts. President IOG will not let him out of his sight for a moment, because Boreh, who lives in exile, last year began to
finance the Union pour le Salut National (USN, opposition coalition). Djibouti therefore hired the services of the lawyer Cavinder Bull of the firm Drew & Napier to obtain an order from the courts in Singapore to seize $45 million held by Boreh and his seven children in a trust fund created in February. This trust fund is reportedly the depository for shares held in Net Support Holdings Ltd (NSHL), a firm registered in the British Virgin Islands and which is a shareholder in Horizon Djibouti Holdings Ltd, the company that operates the oil storage terminal in Djibouti. The law firm WongPartnership is acting for Boreh in Singapore. The next stage in this legal battle being played out internationally will most probably be
Hong Kong, where another company owned by Boreh is based, Essence Management Ltd, which is also a shareholder in the Djibouti oil storage terminal.
N°1366 25/10/2013 Abdourahman Boreh blocked in Dubai There is no end in sight to the chase between President Ismail Omar Guelleh and his former friend now dissident and rival Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh. The latest chapter in the saga came last week, when the court of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) decided to comply with the Djibouti government request and froze the $5 million assets held by Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh in the Emirate. This major first in Dubai comes in the wake of the recent decision by a London court to freeze Boreh’s assets and bank accounts (ION 1358). Since Boreh supplied the London court with a list of all of his belongings, the Djibouti legal team is now looking to take legal action wherever he has assets: Singapore, Dubai, British Virgin Islands and Jersey. The recent decision in Dubai concerns real estate situated in a building called Limestone House. However, it adds little to the London verdict, other than to tarnish Boreh’s reputation in Dubai – which in itself is no mean result in the view of the Djibouti government. Despite these difficulties, Boreh has at least one good reason to feel pleased. The Indian Ocean Newsletter has learnt that his name is no longer on Interpol’s red list, where it had been inscribed two years ago at the request of the Djibouti government for “terrorist acts”. This new element should enable Boreh’s lawyers to intervene this week to hasten the Dubai court which is considering an extradition request filed by the Djibouti authorities (ION 1365). This had resulted in Boreh having to submit his French passport to the Dubai authorities and has therefore been blocked in the Emirate for the last two months.
Legal sniping at Boreh trial The legal proceedings that the Djibouti government has instigated in London against businessman Abdourahman Boreh have turned into lawyers fighting over legal niceties. The hearing at the High Court in London on 5 and 6 June, presided by Judge Richard Field, concerning the legal proceedings instigated by the Djibouti government against the businessman living in exile Abdourahman Boreh, produced a strange flurry of press releases. No doubt in a rush to cry victory, the Inspector General of Djibouti, Hassan Issa Sultan, issued a communiqué on 10 June, written by his government’s London lawyers, the firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, announcing that the court had found in its favour. In fact, the verdict had been a little more balanced, enabling Boreh’s lawyers to have the communiqué removed from the government web site www.anticorruptiondjibouti.com. It was then replaced by another communiqué that was much closer to the facts, dated 12 June. In fact, both sides can cry victory to a certain extent. Boreh’s lawyers won one round,
challenging the plaintiff through legal arguments. It had not been possible to discuss the subject of the freezing of up to €77 million of Boreh’s assets that the government had requested, but Boreh undertook to declare all his assets to the court. Finally, Judge Field decided that the major part of the charges, that Boreh denounced as purely political, would be considered at the next session, probably in September. Moreover, the order in France to sequester Boreh’s belongings to the extent of €23 million was confirmed on 31 May. The Djibouti government filed legal proceedings against Boreh in October 2012. It accuses him of using his position of chairman of the Djibouti Port & Free Zone Authority (DPFZA) from 2003 to
2008 to obtain commissions and make investments in the sector. The reason that the accusation had been a long time in coming about is related to the political break between Boreh and his former friend President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh, plus Boreh’s increasing amount of support of the Djibouti opposition.
Madrid distrusts IOG’s justice President Ismail Omar Guelleh still wants the extradition of his archenemy Abdourahman Boreh. But he missed the boat with Spain, as we reveal below. After Dubai (ION 1284), the Djibouti government turned to Spain to try to obtain the extradition of Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh, former business partner of President Ismael Omar Guelleh (IOG) who subsequently became one of his opponents and now lives in exile in London, Paris and Dubai. However, on 27 June 2011, three judges in the Madrid criminal court decided against this extradition request. The Indian Ocean Newsletter is now in a position to reveal more details on this affair that has been kept secret until now. It all began on 3 January 2011 when Boreh was arrested and held for four days in Adeje
(Tenerife) awaiting extradition to Djibouti under an international arrest warrant issued by the latter’s authorities because he had been condemned to 15 years in prison by a Djibouti court (ION 1287). Boreh at the time was waging an active internet campaign against IOG’s reelection in the April 2011 presidential election. Nevertheless, the Spanish authorities took their time to examine the Djibouti request. Then, on 8 April 2011, the Spanish council of ministers finally allowed Boreh and his lawyers to contest this extradition procedure before the courts. After several legal skirmishes between Boreh’s lawyer, Hernandez Gutierrez, and the Djibouti authorities, the extradition request was heard at the end of June. The matter was quickly settled, because the Spanish public prosecutor himself demanded “the nonauthorisation of the extradition request” from Djibouti. While it is true that the said request did meet with all the formal conditions for it to be accepted, the Spanish government did nevertheless disallow it given “the difficulty in proving the inexistence of political motives ” behind the request to extradite Boreh. The three judges in the Madrid tribunal agreed with the defence and the public authority and found against Djibouti’s extradition request.
A plague on the Boreh family assets The Djibouti courts ordered the seizure of the assets owned by the family of Abdourahman Boreh and at the same time refused him the right to be defended by the French lawyer Olivier Morice. The President of the Djibouti lower court (TPI), Hassan Idriss Samirieh, did not take long to act on a complaint filed on 9 June by the Djibouti government. On 12 June and without any defence lawyer being present, he signed an injunction authorising several ministries to sequester property owned by Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh and his children his son Alaa and daughter Nadira for “a debt provisionally estimated at a total of FDJ 3,677,538,238” (about $ 21 million). This same injunction mandated the bailiff Abdoulmalik Habib to seize buildings and land owned by the Djibouti businessman and his family as well as their shares and dividends in several companies of which they own a stake, even if they are subsidiaries of firms registered in Dubai. Half of the sum the Djibouti government is demanding corresponds to a tax readjustment on the company Djibouti Mix for FDJ 1,757,045,040 (nearly $ 10 million) for the years 2005 and 2006. Boreh contests this sum because the way it was determined does not correspond to the practice used for company tax (ION 1268). The acid aspect of this legal decision against the Boreh family is that it was endorsed by an IssaOdhergob like Boreh. Hassan Idriss Samirieh had, in fact, suffered the wrath of the Minister for Justice Mohamed Barkat Abdillahi a few months ago when he had refused to give his judgement in favour of former employees of Soprim, one of Boreh’s companies, when they took their boss to court. He was then removed from his post of president of the social tribunal. Subsequently appointed to the head of the TPI, he does not want to repeat the misadventure. Meanwhile, the Djibouti minister for justice wrote to the French lawyer Olivier Morice on 16 June, refusing him the right to defend Boreh in the Djibouti criminal court. In the event, he was condemned in absentiaon 23 June to a term of 15 years in prison and fined FDJ 5 million.
IOG wants Boreh’s skin at all costs After being unsuccessful in getting Abdourahman Boreh extradited from Dubai, President Ismail Omar Guelleh now wants a Djibouti court to condemn him. The increasingly acid conflict that has pitted President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh (IOG) and his wife against their former longstanding friend, the FrenchDjibouti businessman Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh, is about to take on a new twist. IOG wanted to get his own back on Boreh for filing a complaint in a Paris court against him and his wife. So he had already tried to get Boreh extradited from Dubai, where he lives for part of the year (ION 1284). The United Arab Emirates refused to comply with this mere injunction from the Djibouti Head of State. The latter therefore had another idea: he has just summoned Boreh to appear in a Djibouti court on 24 June to answer to an accusation of complicity in a “bomb attack” some of his cousins are alleged to have committed. This affair is far from new. Moreover, it is part of the accusations Boreh has levelled against IOG, under the terms “sequestration, torture and the death of Mahdi Abdillahi” in prison. The latter is one of Boreh’s cousins who had been arrested together with his younger brother on 22 March 2009, accused of throwing a handgrenade into a store, which did not cause any victims. But this key witness in this affair died mysteriously in jail and the Djibouti authorities refused his wife’s demand for an autopsy to be carried out on his body. Since then, all manner of pressure has been applied on the deceased’s brother, Mohamed Ahmed Abdillahi, still being held in jail, to testify against Boreh. On 24 June, the prosecution will therefore have to produce a witness testifying that telephone conversations took place between Mahdi Abdillahi (who is no longer there to confirm them) and Boreh, stating that Boreh had denounced IOG’s regime and calling on his friends and family to oppose it firmly. IOG wants to use this to condemn Boreh in absentia (since he will not return to Djibouti) so that an international arrest warrant can be issued against him. In fact, the real reason behind all this manoeuvring is to prevent Boreh from running against IOG in the 2011 presidential election.
IOG's tussle with Boreh continues The Paris First Court has just found in favour of the complaint filed on 23 February by the FrancoDjibouti businessman Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh against the Djibouti President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh (IOG) and his wife for “extortion… in an organised gang”, “kidnapping and illegal imprisonment”, “torture and barbaric acts” and “murder”. An investigating magistrate should soon be designated to examine the affair. All of which puts the Djibouti First Lady off the idea of going on her usual shopping trip to Paris. It did not take long for Djibouti to make its countermove, which concentrated on Dubai, where Boreh resides for part of the year. When Boreh tried to renew his visa last week, the Dubai authorities dragged their feet and made him linger from day to day. Because the United Arab Emirates ministry for foreign affairs had received a request from the Djibouti authorities and a phone call from President IOG himself to hand Boreh over to them forcibly. Djibouti may have issued an arrest warrant against him, accusing him among other things of being implicated in a “bomb attack”: some individuals who had thrown a hand grenade without causing any victims had stated that he was the instigator of their action. Such a scenario is by no means new in Djibouti, as it has already been used in the past by the local authorities. But the manipulation seemed a bit too obvious, as to date the Dubai authorities have still not acceded to Djibouti’s demand. For the time being, they are content with questioning Boreh. They are also believed to be sending an emissary to Djibouti soon to find out more.
Blow by blow account of IOGBoreh clash N°1399 23/03/2015 The prosecutor Djama Souleiman falls foul of the Boreh affair The Djibouti public prosecutor Djama Souleiman Ali will have to eat humble pie! In his role of public prosecutor, he had had Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh condemned in absentia in 2010 on a charge of inciting terrorism. He will now have to go back to the Supreme Court and have the verdict overturned on the grounds of flawed “evidence”. The law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, which acted for the Djibouti government in its case against Boreh in the London high court, officially informed The Indian Ocean Newsletter of this decision in an email dated 17 March . It was President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh (IOG) who had wanted this condemnation so as to make Boreh pay for becoming dissident. The case was very badly cobbled together, but it worked for a while. The British Judge Julian Martin Flaux who heard the case in the London High Court (ION 1398) now believes that Peter Gray (who has since been suspended from the law firm Gibson Dunn in which he is a partner) and the Djibouti executive were fully aware of the fallacious nature of the charges but nevertheless used the condemnation in Djibouti to have his assets (worth £65 million) frozen internationally. Judge Flaux therefore issued an injunction on 23 March to unfreeze Boreh’s assets, except for those held in the company Horizon Djibouti Terminals Ltd (HDTL) until the Djibouti government case against it for corruption is heard in October. In his ruling on 23 March, Judge Flaux considered Peter Gray had “deliberately misled” the London court. He also criticized Djibouti’s actions as “reprehensible” for implicating Boreh in the 2009 attack. The judge also reprimanded Djibouti for continuing to use his earlier 2013 rulings internationally (in Dubai and with Interpol) against Boreh’s assets while it knew perfectly well they were based on a misunderstanding. In passing, he also noted that Djibouti had never presented any evidence that the alleged grenade attack in March 2009 had indeed taken place.
Boreh trial: the plaintiff may be fined Lord Falconer, a partner in the firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, whose partner Peter Gray
acted on behalf of the Djibouti government in its case against the businessman Abdourahman Boreh, in his turn apologised to the London court on 9 March for giving misleading information in the case (ION 1398). He even accepted in advance to pay any fines the court might impose against his firm. Gray has already given way to Philippe Rocher to handle this affair, while the two Djibouti officials acting in the case the Inspector General of State Hassan Issa Sultan, and the Attorney General, Djama Souleiman Ali have been dismissed. The British Judge Julian Martin Flaux will announce within the next two weeks whether he will lift the worldwide freezing order against Boreh’s assets imposed after the now obsolete guilty verdict for terrorism. The accusation of embezzlement will be heard in October. Unless it is put back to 2016.
Abdourahman Boreh scores a point in London High Court For the first time, the ongoing legal trial of strength between the Djibouti government and businessman Abdourahman Boreh has turned in the latter’s favour. This was at the Commercial Court, a subdivision of the High Court of Justice in London, on 13 November. Djibouti was represented by Khawar Qureshi and Jennifer Haywood retained by the firm Gilbson, Dunn & Crutcher, while Richard Waller and James Willan, taken by Byrne & Partners, acted for Boreh. During the hearing, Judge Flaux expressed his doubt on the validity of the terrorism accusation claimed by a Djibouti court against Boreh and deemed that the British courts had acted in error when they decreed a worldwide freezing of Boreh’s assets in September 2013. He requested more detailed information on this point from Djibouti’s lawyers and ordered them to pay 25% of Boreh’s legal costs.
IOG now battling against Dubai President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh has not swallowed the Dubai courts’ refusal to extradite Abdourahman Boreh. His retaliation was not a long time coming. On 8 July, the Djibouti government announced that it was cancelling the concession for the Doraleh Container Terminal awarded several years ago to the firm Dubai Port World (DPW) via the intermediary of the businessman Abdourahman Mohamed Boreh. At the time Boreh was close to President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh (IOG), but is now in exile. Djibouti took the matter to the Court of International Arbitration in London and DPW is continuing to operate the terminal until the court makes its ruling. This decision is not a million miles away from the refusal by the Dubai courts to extradite Boreh to Djibouti. To be sure, the Djibouti government accuses DPW of “corruption” for attributing Boreh unjustified advantages during the negotiation of the concession, namely consulting and construction contracts for his companies and taking stakes in his joint ventures abroad. There is nothing new in Djibouti’s pressure on DPW. Moreover, since around 2008 the company has not made any investment at all on the Doraleh container terminal. The Djibouti government decided to go a step further in its confrontation with the Dubai company, as it already has a safety net: last year it struck a partnership, forming the company Port de Djibouti as a joint venture between China Merchant Holding International and Port autonome international de Djibouti (PAID). DPW at the time saw this joint venture as unfair competition as it would enable the Chinese company to drain its knowhow and then replace it. The explanation was that via Port de Djibouti, the Chinese company was DPW’s de facto partner in the Doraleh container terminal, a partner that DPW did not want. It now remains to be seen what will be the fallout of this affair on the major Dubai investments in Djibouti: Hotel Kempinski and the Doraleh Oil Terminal owned by Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC).
IOG and Boreh battle it out in court The Djibouti authorities did not finally manage to obtain the extradition from Dubai of the businessman turned opponent Abdourahman Boreh. But they have not given up hope of getting their hands on the proceeds of the sale of Boreh’s stakes in certain companies. They had 30 days to lodge an appeal against the ruling by the Dubai court on 27 April rejecting their request to extradite Boreh. But as the Djibouti government lawyers did not appeal before the deadline expired, Dubai will have to give Boreh back his French passport, which had been taken from him pending the hearing. The businessman, who has dual French and Djibouti nationality, will therefore be able to travel again, after having been obliged to stay in Djibouti during the whole of the extradition proceedings. However, this does little more than change the seat of action of his legal dispute with the Djibouti government. To be sure, the latter should go ahead this week with the auction of the stakes in the company Djibouti Dry Port FZCO held by two firms owned by Boreh and his family, namely Dubairegistered Boreh International FZE and Hong Kongregistered Essences Management. The previous attempt to do so back in January had been blocked by Boreh’s lawyers, who filed an appeal with the Djibouti court because DDP FZCO is a Djibouti company (ION 1372).
IOG attacks one of Boreh’s partners President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh (IOG) is continuing his scorched earth policy against his former friend now opponent, Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh. In addition to instigating legal proceedings against him in Djibouti and various other countries (Spain, United Kingdom, Dubai and Malaysia for example), the Djibouti government has just gone on the attack against one of his trading partners in the region, the Somaliland businessman Djama Omar Saïd. The latter was arrested in Djibouti on 4 November, initially on a charge of cigarette smuggling, and his company Etablissements Djama Omar Said was closed. However, a week after his arrest, the authorities had still not supplied any evidence to back their accusation. He was finally freed on 10 November and summoned to appear in court from 22 to 24 November on the lesser charge of providing help to contraband and its organisation. Djama Omar Said is an Issak like IOG’s wife Kadra Mahamoud Haïd, so dignitaries from this community went to Djibouti from Hargeisa to ask the Djibouti First Lady to have him freed. Djama Omar Said is the chairman of the Ominco Group and has been Boreh’s friend and business partner for over thirty years and has acted as his agent in a business distributing cigarettes in Somaliland. His arrest is thus an act of intimidation to push him to break commercial ties with Boreh, since Djibouti’s strategy, on both the legal and police fronts, is to strangle Boreh of funds by cutting off his sources of revenue.
No end in the war against Boreh The businessman Abdourahman Boreh is in court in Dubai, at the request of the Djibouti authorities. President Ismaël Omar Guelleh is making unending legal initiatives to get the head of his former friend, businessman Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh, now living in exile from where he supports the Djibouti opposition. Djibouti has already instigated 25 separate legal proceedings against Boreh and members of his family (ION 1360) and in addition has reactivated Interpol against him on an old arrest warrant issued by a Djibouti court. Boreh has now consequently found himself stranded in Dubai for a month, until the local judiciary decides on Djibouti’s request for his extradition. Boreh’s lawyers have handed the Dubai prosecutor the documents from the Spanish court which had found against the Djibouti government in a similar extradition request in June 2011 (ION 1316). This is no first. The Djibouti government had already tried to have Boreh extradited from Dubai three years ago. Dubai refused on the grounds that it did not have an extradition treaty with Djibouti. It recently reiterated this position to the Djibouti general prosecutor Djama Souleiman. Things could be different now: last month the Djibouti Cabinet ratified a judicial partnership with the United Arab Emirates, which includes extradition for persons wanted for financial crime. However, even in that case Boreh’s extradition to Djibouti would seem unlikely, as he holds a French passport and could therefore only be extradited to France.
IOG hounds former friend Boreh President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh (IOG) doesn’t skimp when it comes to wreaking revenge on his former friend, the businessman Abdurahman Boreh. The latter has lived in exile for many years and joined the opposition movement Union pour le salut national (USN). So far, the Djibouti government has already filed 25 legal proceedings against Boreh and members of his family (his wife and their seven children) in five different countries: 9 in Dubai, 10 in France, 1 in Spain and 5 in the United Kingdom. The law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher has been in charge of this legal hounding on behalf of the Djibouti government since October 2012. At the hearing against Boreh in the London commercial court last month (ION 1358), this firm instructed the barristers Khawar Qureshi QC of Serle Court and Daniel Goodkin of 4 Pump Court. Boreh, for his part, used the law firm Byrne and Partners, which instructed Christopher Butcher QC and Kier Howie of 7KBW. High powered law firms and silks don’t come cheap, which goes to show the level of expenditure both sides undertook on the case. During the London hearing, counsel for the plaintiff (the Djibouti government) asked for the adversary to be condemned to pay the legal costs, which mounted up to the tidy sum of £4 million (€4.6 million).
Boreh, from IOG's friend to outcast N°1268 05/09/2009
Boreh has a busy summer The businessman Abdourahman Boreh, whose relations with the presidential couple are at an ebb, has not been idle during the last few weeks. Abdourahman Boreh has recently had separate meetings with three representatives of the Djibouti government in Dubai where he is now resident. The Indian Ocean Newsletter has managed to obtain the names of two of them. One is the governor of the Central Bank, Djama Mahmoud Haid, the brother of the First Lady, Kadra Mahmoud Haid. According to our sources, Haid asked Boreh to go back to Djibouti to make amends with the Head of State. To be sure, this conflict is increasingly troublesome for President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh (IOG) because it only aggravates a political situation that is already unhealthy and risks encouraging members of the opposition and certain Issadignitaries who are against his running for a third presidential term. However, Boreh does not seem to have accepted Haid’s slightly threatening request. The other Djiboutian dignitary Boreh met in Dubai in early August is a longstanding friend of his: the Minister for Home Affairs Yacine Elmi Bouh. This Mamassan (President IOG’s clan) is in dispute with certain ministers close to the First Lady (ION 1267) and is not particularly in favour of a third presidential mandate. Many of his protégés have been sacked – the latest in the line was the prefect of the capital city, Mahmoud Houssein who was dismissed last month. The presidential couple is wary of him, and his meeting with Boreh did nothing to appease their misgivings. Consequently, the possibility that he might be ousted is frequently raised. If it does indeed occur, he could be replaced by Hassan Said known as Modobé, the current head of security, who is a Mamassanand the same clan as he is.
N°1265 04/07/2009 IOG wants to smoke Boreh out Continuing its sniping against Abdurahman Boreh, the Djibouti administration seized a consignment of contraband cigarettes it claims are owned by him. On 1 July, Radio Télévision Djiboutienne (RTD) announced that a large consignment of contraband cigarettes had been seized on the Somaliland border. The cigarettes were branded Benson & Hedges, the same as those distributed by the firm Red Sea Central (RSC) owned by Abdurahman Boreh. These cigarettes were labelled “République de Djibouti”, like those on sale on the local market. The government hopes that it therefore holds “proof” that Boreh has broken tax legislation, something that the Finance Minister Ali Farah Assoweh, has been accusing him of for months. The latter even wrote to British American Tobacco (BAT) informing it that RSC had had its licence withdrawn, because the company was involved in “illicit contraband cigarette activity”. BAT then asked for proof of these accusations, which Assoweh was unable to provide. On the other hand, he did advise BAT to choose from among three busiensmen Rachid Djama Djilal, Houssein Mohamoud Robleh and Moussa Abdourahman a new operator in Djibouti. In fact, the last container of cigarettes RSC imported into Djibouti dates back to February 2009. Since it lost its licence in April, RSC no longer sells cigarettes in Djibouti, where some 500 boxes are still in limbo. On the other hand, it is still selling them in Somaliland and Somalia where RSC is BAT’s distributor. But the cigarettes sold there do not normally carry a label that they are for exclusive sale in Djibouti. For the Djibouti government, this seizure (the first for a long time) comes just at the right time to discredit Boreh. To such an extent that RSC’s executives are wondering whether it was a put up job, using an old consignment of cigarettes. Ironically, the head of the flying customs, Dileita Hassan, who is the brother of the Djibouti Prime Minister and who made the announcement on RTD about the seizure of contraband cigarettes, owes one to Boreh. Indeed, it was Boreh who had financed his trip to South Africa in December 2008, to train in the fight against contraband and undergo medical tests.
N°1257 07/03/2009 Net tightening around the Boreh family President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh and his wife Kadra Mahamoud Haid, are trying to put the courts onto the tail of the businessman Abdourahman Boreh now living in exile (ION 1251) with whom they are in open conflict. They want to dissuade him from taking any political action against them ahead of the presidential election in 2011. He and the members of his family still in Djibouti are therefore now the target of manoeuvres to tighten the net around them by the State services. Pressure on the BIMR The Djibouti authorities have tried to incite the Banque Indosuez Mer Rouge (BIMR) subsidiary of the French Crédit Agricole to take Abdourahman Boreh to court. A few weeks ago four gendarmes went to this bank’s headquarters to obtain details of the businessman’s banking transactions over the past few years. The bank manager, Luc Beiso, initially told them he could not supply this kind of information because of banking secrecy. The authorities then threatened him and he was obliged to comply. Other pressure has been applied on the BIMR to press charges against Boreh, who owes it a fair sum of money. To be sure, the bank has given Boreh a sizeable overdraft over the years and by the beginning of 2009 he owed it $ 6 million. In order to avoid legal proceedings in Djibouti, he paid off his overdraft at the BIMR, which therefore no longer has any reason to take him to court. The family in the line of sight The wrath of the presidential couple extends to his younger brother Mahmoud Mohamed Boreh: he was imprisoned on 13 February for threatening the
Honorary Consul of Djibouti in Rabat, Mohamed Lamhaouchi . This Moroccan businessman who is close to the Djibouti First Lady is in conflict with the Boreh family over a plot of land in Djibouti where he wants to build a villa. But the Boreh family claim to have already purchased the site and have begun the groundwork to build 65 villas. Faced with the Moroccan businessman’s insistence when he went to the site to claim the plot, the young Boreh brother lost his cool and made threats against him.
He was then arrested and underwent a severe interrogation under Colonel Bogoreh of the gendarmerie, before being freed on bail on 24 February. His trial is scheduled in March. Meanwhile, Abdourahman Boreh’s nephew, a young man of 23, was found dead in his home and the authorities concluded that he had killed himself. But the family is not so sure. This young man had previously confided to his mother that he had received threats from the Service de la Documentation et de la Sécurité (SDS, intelligence services) that they were going to finish with the Boreh family now that his uncle had left Djibouti. Safety zone In fact, the Djibouti authorities would appear to be waging a scorched earth policy around
Boreh.
Thus, anyone considered rightly or wrongly as being close to Boreh or having close
professional contact with him, risks being sacked. While they are at it, the authorities are also using this image of untouchable to settle some old scores. This is what happened to two Afar executives in January. The deputy director general of the Banque pour le Commerce et l’IndustrieMer Rouge (BCIMR, a subsidiary of the French bank Bred) and administrator representing the Djibouti government on the board of the same bank, Ibrahim Hamadou Hassan, was relieved of his functions and shunted aside as technical advisor to Prime Minister Dileita Mohamed Dileita. What is held against him is the fact that he had accorded Boreh overdraft facilities. In fact BCIMR under the leadership of Ould Amar Yahya did all it could last year.
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IOG applies pressure on Abdourahman Boreh’s family After sending a letter to decline the invitation from the British judge Julian Martin Flaux to appear as a witness in the trial in London of the Djibouti government against the businessman
Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh, President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh has turned his attention to Boreh’s family. According to our sources, the mayor of Djibouti and member of the Boreh family, Houssein Abdillahi
Kayad, has recently been put under observation by the Service de documentation et de sécurité (SDS,). His youngest brother, Aziz Boreh, had his passport confiscated on 26 September when he returned from Paris where he had gone for medical treatment. Despite asking his friend Hassan Saïd Khaireh aka Hassan Madobe, the head of national security, to intervene so his passport would be returned, Aziz Boreh was unable to go to Addis Ababa on 12 October.
IOG could be called as witness in Boreh trial On 11 September, the British High Court Judge, Julian Martin Flaux held another meeting with the lawyers for the two sides in the case brought by the Djibouti government against the businessman Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh, a former friend and major campaign contributor to President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh. The purpose of the meeting was to determine the list of witnesses and draw up a timetable for the judge to hear them ahead of the trial in May 2016. A lineup of Djibouti dignitaries went to Paris and London to prepare this meeting with their lawyers. The choice and the timing of the witness hearings is a major political issue because of the forthcoming presidential election in Djibouti in April 2016, in which IOG intends to run for a new mandate. The fact is, Boreh’s lawyers want the Djibouti president to be on the list of witnesses to be heard by Mr Justice Flaux. At present, IOG is contemplating participating via a videoconference from Ethiopia, where he goes regularly. But he wants to avoid having to comply with a possible summons by Mr Justice Flaux to go to London, which would have a negative impact on his election campaign. Although Boreh no longer has to face accusations of terrorism, which were dropped when they were shown to be unsubstantiated, he still has nevertheless to face charges of diverting funds. The Djibouti authorities are maintaining these charges against him in the affair concerning the award of the Doraleh Container Terminal franchise to the Emirates company DP World. Mr Justice Flaux wants the Djibouti government to establish that Boreh did indeed make his country lose money. One of the government arguments concerns the sums DP World paid Boreh, including an annual payment of $250,000. Boreh’s lawyers will present this as remuneration for his consulting activity throughout Africa.
Boreh affair: court rejects another request to freeze assets The British judge Julian Martin Flaux rejected on 6 May the case put by Djibouti’s lawyers,
the firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, for a freeze of the assets in Singapore of the FrenchDjibouti businessman Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh. The case was brought against the Hong Kong based company, Essence Management Ltd, plus a firm registered in the British Virgin Islands owned by a trust constituted by Abdourahman Boreh and his seven children, NetSupport Holdings Ltd. Previously, on 23 March, Mr Justice Flaux had partly lifted the freeze on Abdourahman Boreh’s assets in the case brought against him by the Djbiouti government for alleged embezzlement.
Boreh trial could lead to backlash against IOG The recent ruling from the English High Court in the Boreh affair is a blow to President
Ismaïl Omar Guelleh. The English Judge Julian Martin Flaux was very angry on 23 March when he gave his verdict in the case for embezzling funds that the Djibouti government had brought against Abdourahman
Mahmoud Boreh. He partially lifted the freeze on Boreh’s assets considering that the plaintiffs the economic intelligence investigators Kroll, the US law firm Gibson Dunn, and the Djibouti government had “deliberately misled” the English court and orchestrated “an abusive international campaign” against Boreh, accusing him of inciting terrorism. The judge noted some “particularly flagrant examples of reprehensible conduct very far from the standards expected in court from a Sovereign State”. Among the revelatory events according to Mr Justice Flaux, is the meeting in Dubai on 22 January 2014, when Tom EverettHeath, Kroll’s Europe, Middle East and Africa manager applied “improper commercial
pressure” on Boreh. He had proposed an amicable solution that “if he settled litigation (in fact for more than it was worth) he could avoid the risk of extradition to Djibouti”. Flaux added “the strategy of concealment from the courts that the conviction was unsafe … was developed at the meeting at Kroll on 27 August 2013”, attended by the general prosecutor, Djama Souleiman Ali, the inspector general, Hassan Issa Sultan (ION 1399), Tom EverettHeath and the Dubai law firm Al Tamimi. Linking these events, he even expressed the possibility that the contract for the Djibouti Doraleh Container Terminal from the Emirates company DP World had been rescinded following Dubai’s refusal to extradite Boreh to Djibouti (ION 1384).
N°1398 06/03/2015 Prosecution backtracks in case against Boreh The lawyer Peter Gray of the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher acting for the Djibouti government in its case against FrenchDjibouti businessman Abdourahman Boreh has had a decidedly bad week (ION 1392). During the court hearing in London chaired by the judge Mr Julian Martin Flaux, which lasted from 2 to 5 March instead of the two days expected, Gray and the other lawyers acting for the Djibouti government tried to show that they had acted in good faith when they reiterated the mistake that had led to Boreh being condemned by a Djibouti court to a long prison sentence on 25 June 2010 and even being put on the Interpol watch list. Abdourahman Boreh is a former supporter of President Ismael Omar Guelleh (IOG) but then became his rival and now lives in exile; the Djibouti government has levelled accusations against him for terrorism and embezzlement. The Djibouti court had found Boreh guilty of involvement in organising an attack in Djibouti on 4 March 2009 (a grenade was thrown at a Nougaprix supermarket) as he had telephoned the previous day to the alleged perpetrator. However, the telephone call recorded by the Djibouti intelligence services was made the day following the grenade attack and therefore could not show that Boreh was its instigator. Judge Flaux was particularly furious. He felt that the Djibouti lawyers had misled him in the hearing in September 2013 which had decreed a worldwide freeze of Boreh’s assets. This week, the Djibouti government, Peter Gray and the firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher each apologised to the London court, to Boreh and to his lawyers. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher has now retained the services of Philip Rocher to act for the Djibouti government in this case.
Why Dubai refused to extradite Boreh to Djibouti The ruling by the Dubai court against Djibouti’s request for the extradition of FrenchDjibouti businessman Abdourahman Boreh is a snub to President Ismail Omar Guelleh. The court chaired by Judge Aissa Mohamed Sharif issued its ruling in Arabic at the end of April (ION 1381). The Indian Ocean Newsletter has seen a translation of this document, which shows that the court had really distanced itself from the rulings of the Djibouti tribunal that had condemned Boreh for terrorism. The Dubai judge deemed that her country was not bound to execute the Djibouti court ruling, because it had “been made in absentia” and that “nothing contained in the documents submitted [by the Djibouti government – Ed] made it enforceable”. According to the Dubai court, an arrest warrant cannot be issued [against Boreh] “because such a measure must come from an investigating magistrate before trial and condemnation in absentia”.
N°1372 24/01/2014 Boreh’s assets put up for sale At the end of a protracted legal battle, the government is going to sell shares owned by the exiled opposition businessman, Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh. The finance minister Ilyas Moussa Dawaleh, whose brother Youssouf Moussa Dawaleh has just become chairman of the Chambre de Commerce de Djibouti (CCD), has requested 28 January that shares in Djibouti Dry Port FZCO held by two companies owned by Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh and his family are sold by auction on. The government is justifying its action by referring to court decisions dated May and October 2013. However, the legal documents obtained by The Indian Ocean Newsletter reveal a strange sleight of hand. To be sure, the court decision dated 14 May 2013 was issued in favour of a certain Marc Aurelio Gambelli who had instigated the proceedings in September 2012 against Boreh’s two firms with whom he had been in partnership in the firm Atelier Maritime. The court had found in Gambelli’s favour and awarded him FD 3.5 billion (€14.4 million) in damages. This verdict was subsequently “rectified” on 10 October, replacing the name of Gambelli with the State of Djibouti, on the grounds of a “material error”. With this “rectified” court decision in hand, Ilyas Moussa Dawaleh obtained an injunction to pay issued against Boreh, who did not respond. The minister therefore ordered Boreh’s shares to be put up for sale. The reserve price is set at $6,430,000 for the 643 shares in the firm Djibouti Dry Port FZCO held by Boreh International FZE, and $1,490,00 for the 149 shares in Djibouti Dry Port FZCO owned by Essences Management Ltd, another company owned by the Boreh family, registered in Hong Kong. Abdourahman Boreh, a former friend and business partner of president Ismaïl Omar Guelleh (IOG), has become over the last few years one of his staunchest opponents and lives in exile. He has been stuck in Dubai for the last few months, where the authorities have frozen his real estate assets of $5 million and confiscated his French passport. (ION 1366).
Boreh attacked in Singapore courts The legal proceedings by the Djibouti government to confiscate the assets of Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh have gone all the way round the world. After London then Dubai, where Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh is stuck after the authorities impounded his French passport (ION 1366) now the businessman and former friend of President Ismail Omar Guelleh who has been angry with him for many years, is attacked by the Singapore courts. President IOG will not let him out of his sight for a moment, because Boreh, who lives in exile, last year began to
finance the Union pour le Salut National (USN, opposition coalition). Djibouti therefore hired the services of the lawyer Cavinder Bull of the firm Drew & Napier to obtain an order from the courts in Singapore to seize $45 million held by Boreh and his seven children in a trust fund created in February. This trust fund is reportedly the depository for shares held in Net Support Holdings Ltd (NSHL), a firm registered in the British Virgin Islands and which is a shareholder in Horizon Djibouti Holdings Ltd, the company that operates the oil storage terminal in Djibouti. The law firm WongPartnership is acting for Boreh in Singapore. The next stage in this legal battle being played out internationally will most probably be
Hong Kong, where another company owned by Boreh is based, Essence Management Ltd, which is also a shareholder in the Djibouti oil storage terminal.
N°1366 25/10/2013 Abdourahman Boreh blocked in Dubai There is no end in sight to the chase between President Ismail Omar Guelleh and his former friend now dissident and rival Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh. The latest chapter in the saga came last week, when the court of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) decided to comply with the Djibouti government request and froze the $5 million assets held by Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh in the Emirate. This major first in Dubai comes in the wake of the recent decision by a London court to freeze Boreh’s assets and bank accounts (ION 1358). Since Boreh supplied the London court with a list of all of his belongings, the Djibouti legal team is now looking to take legal action wherever he has assets: Singapore, Dubai, British Virgin Islands and Jersey. The recent decision in Dubai concerns real estate situated in a building called Limestone House. However, it adds little to the London verdict, other than to tarnish Boreh’s reputation in Dubai – which in itself is no mean result in the view of the Djibouti government. Despite these difficulties, Boreh has at least one good reason to feel pleased. The Indian Ocean Newsletter has learnt that his name is no longer on Interpol’s red list, where it had been inscribed two years ago at the request of the Djibouti government for “terrorist acts”. This new element should enable Boreh’s lawyers to intervene this week to hasten the Dubai court which is considering an extradition request filed by the Djibouti authorities (ION 1365). This had resulted in Boreh having to submit his French passport to the Dubai authorities and has therefore been blocked in the Emirate for the last two months.
Legal sniping at Boreh trial The legal proceedings that the Djibouti government has instigated in London against businessman Abdourahman Boreh have turned into lawyers fighting over legal niceties. The hearing at the High Court in London on 5 and 6 June, presided by Judge Richard Field, concerning the legal proceedings instigated by the Djibouti government against the businessman living in exile Abdourahman Boreh, produced a strange flurry of press releases. No doubt in a rush to cry victory, the Inspector General of Djibouti, Hassan Issa Sultan, issued a communiqué on 10 June, written by his government’s London lawyers, the firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, announcing that the court had found in its favour. In fact, the verdict had been a little more balanced, enabling Boreh’s lawyers to have the communiqué removed from the government web site www.anticorruptiondjibouti.com. It was then replaced by another communiqué that was much closer to the facts, dated 12 June. In fact, both sides can cry victory to a certain extent. Boreh’s lawyers won one round,
challenging the plaintiff through legal arguments. It had not been possible to discuss the subject of the freezing of up to €77 million of Boreh’s assets that the government had requested, but Boreh undertook to declare all his assets to the court. Finally, Judge Field decided that the major part of the charges, that Boreh denounced as purely political, would be considered at the next session, probably in September. Moreover, the order in France to sequester Boreh’s belongings to the extent of €23 million was confirmed on 31 May. The Djibouti government filed legal proceedings against Boreh in October 2012. It accuses him of using his position of chairman of the Djibouti Port & Free Zone Authority (DPFZA) from 2003 to
2008 to obtain commissions and make investments in the sector. The reason that the accusation had been a long time in coming about is related to the political break between Boreh and his former friend President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh, plus Boreh’s increasing amount of support of the Djibouti opposition.
Madrid distrusts IOG’s justice President Ismail Omar Guelleh still wants the extradition of his archenemy Abdourahman Boreh. But he missed the boat with Spain, as we reveal below. After Dubai (ION 1284), the Djibouti government turned to Spain to try to obtain the extradition of Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh, former business partner of President Ismael Omar Guelleh (IOG) who subsequently became one of his opponents and now lives in exile in London, Paris and Dubai. However, on 27 June 2011, three judges in the Madrid criminal court decided against this extradition request. The Indian Ocean Newsletter is now in a position to reveal more details on this affair that has been kept secret until now. It all began on 3 January 2011 when Boreh was arrested and held for four days in Adeje
(Tenerife) awaiting extradition to Djibouti under an international arrest warrant issued by the latter’s authorities because he had been condemned to 15 years in prison by a Djibouti court (ION 1287). Boreh at the time was waging an active internet campaign against IOG’s reelection in the April 2011 presidential election. Nevertheless, the Spanish authorities took their time to examine the Djibouti request. Then, on 8 April 2011, the Spanish council of ministers finally allowed Boreh and his lawyers to contest this extradition procedure before the courts. After several legal skirmishes between Boreh’s lawyer, Hernandez Gutierrez, and the Djibouti authorities, the extradition request was heard at the end of June. The matter was quickly settled, because the Spanish public prosecutor himself demanded “the nonauthorisation of the extradition request” from Djibouti. While it is true that the said request did meet with all the formal conditions for it to be accepted, the Spanish government did nevertheless disallow it given “the difficulty in proving the inexistence of political motives ” behind the request to extradite Boreh. The three judges in the Madrid tribunal agreed with the defence and the public authority and found against Djibouti’s extradition request.
A plague on the Boreh family assets The Djibouti courts ordered the seizure of the assets owned by the family of Abdourahman Boreh and at the same time refused him the right to be defended by the French lawyer Olivier Morice. The President of the Djibouti lower court (TPI), Hassan Idriss Samirieh, did not take long to act on a complaint filed on 9 June by the Djibouti government. On 12 June and without any defence lawyer being present, he signed an injunction authorising several ministries to sequester property owned by Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh and his children his son Alaa and daughter Nadira for “a debt provisionally estimated at a total of FDJ 3,677,538,238” (about $ 21 million). This same injunction mandated the bailiff Abdoulmalik Habib to seize buildings and land owned by the Djibouti businessman and his family as well as their shares and dividends in several companies of which they own a stake, even if they are subsidiaries of firms registered in Dubai. Half of the sum the Djibouti government is demanding corresponds to a tax readjustment on the company Djibouti Mix for FDJ 1,757,045,040 (nearly $ 10 million) for the years 2005 and 2006. Boreh contests this sum because the way it was determined does not correspond to the practice used for company tax (ION 1268). The acid aspect of this legal decision against the Boreh family is that it was endorsed by an IssaOdhergob like Boreh. Hassan Idriss Samirieh had, in fact, suffered the wrath of the Minister for Justice Mohamed Barkat Abdillahi a few months ago when he had refused to give his judgement in favour of former employees of Soprim, one of Boreh’s companies, when they took their boss to court. He was then removed from his post of president of the social tribunal. Subsequently appointed to the head of the TPI, he does not want to repeat the misadventure. Meanwhile, the Djibouti minister for justice wrote to the French lawyer Olivier Morice on 16 June, refusing him the right to defend Boreh in the Djibouti criminal court. In the event, he was condemned in absentiaon 23 June to a term of 15 years in prison and fined FDJ 5 million.
IOG wants Boreh’s skin at all costs After being unsuccessful in getting Abdourahman Boreh extradited from Dubai, President Ismail Omar Guelleh now wants a Djibouti court to condemn him. The increasingly acid conflict that has pitted President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh (IOG) and his wife against their former longstanding friend, the FrenchDjibouti businessman Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh, is about to take on a new twist. IOG wanted to get his own back on Boreh for filing a complaint in a Paris court against him and his wife. So he had already tried to get Boreh extradited from Dubai, where he lives for part of the year (ION 1284). The United Arab Emirates refused to comply with this mere injunction from the Djibouti Head of State. The latter therefore had another idea: he has just summoned Boreh to appear in a Djibouti court on 24 June to answer to an accusation of complicity in a “bomb attack” some of his cousins are alleged to have committed. This affair is far from new. Moreover, it is part of the accusations Boreh has levelled against IOG, under the terms “sequestration, torture and the death of Mahdi Abdillahi” in prison. The latter is one of Boreh’s cousins who had been arrested together with his younger brother on 22 March 2009, accused of throwing a handgrenade into a store, which did not cause any victims. But this key witness in this affair died mysteriously in jail and the Djibouti authorities refused his wife’s demand for an autopsy to be carried out on his body. Since then, all manner of pressure has been applied on the deceased’s brother, Mohamed Ahmed Abdillahi, still being held in jail, to testify against Boreh. On 24 June, the prosecution will therefore have to produce a witness testifying that telephone conversations took place between Mahdi Abdillahi (who is no longer there to confirm them) and Boreh, stating that Boreh had denounced IOG’s regime and calling on his friends and family to oppose it firmly. IOG wants to use this to condemn Boreh in absentia (since he will not return to Djibouti) so that an international arrest warrant can be issued against him. In fact, the real reason behind all this manoeuvring is to prevent Boreh from running against IOG in the 2011 presidential election.
IOG's tussle with Boreh continues The Paris First Court has just found in favour of the complaint filed on 23 February by the FrancoDjibouti businessman Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh against the Djibouti President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh (IOG) and his wife for “extortion… in an organised gang”, “kidnapping and illegal imprisonment”, “torture and barbaric acts” and “murder”. An investigating magistrate should soon be designated to examine the affair. All of which puts the Djibouti First Lady off the idea of going on her usual shopping trip to Paris. It did not take long for Djibouti to make its countermove, which concentrated on Dubai, where Boreh resides for part of the year. When Boreh tried to renew his visa last week, the Dubai authorities dragged their feet and made him linger from day to day. Because the United Arab Emirates ministry for foreign affairs had received a request from the Djibouti authorities and a phone call from President IOG himself to hand Boreh over to them forcibly. Djibouti may have issued an arrest warrant against him, accusing him among other things of being implicated in a “bomb attack”: some individuals who had thrown a hand grenade without causing any victims had stated that he was the instigator of their action. Such a scenario is by no means new in Djibouti, as it has already been used in the past by the local authorities. But the manipulation seemed a bit too obvious, as to date the Dubai authorities have still not acceded to Djibouti’s demand. For the time being, they are content with questioning Boreh. They are also believed to be sending an emissary to Djibouti soon to find out more.
Blow by blow account of IOGBoreh clash N°1399 23/03/2015 The prosecutor Djama Souleiman falls foul of the Boreh affair The Djibouti public prosecutor Djama Souleiman Ali will have to eat humble pie! In his role of public prosecutor, he had had Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh condemned in absentia in 2010 on a charge of inciting terrorism. He will now have to go back to the Supreme Court and have the verdict overturned on the grounds of flawed “evidence”. The law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, which acted for the Djibouti government in its case against Boreh in the London high court, officially informed The Indian Ocean Newsletter of this decision in an email dated 17 March . It was President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh (IOG) who had wanted this condemnation so as to make Boreh pay for becoming dissident. The case was very badly cobbled together, but it worked for a while. The British Judge Julian Martin Flaux who heard the case in the London High Court (ION 1398) now believes that Peter Gray (who has since been suspended from the law firm Gibson Dunn in which he is a partner) and the Djibouti executive were fully aware of the fallacious nature of the charges but nevertheless used the condemnation in Djibouti to have his assets (worth £65 million) frozen internationally. Judge Flaux therefore issued an injunction on 23 March to unfreeze Boreh’s assets, except for those held in the company Horizon Djibouti Terminals Ltd (HDTL) until the Djibouti government case against it for corruption is heard in October. In his ruling on 23 March, Judge Flaux considered Peter Gray had “deliberately misled” the London court. He also criticized Djibouti’s actions as “reprehensible” for implicating Boreh in the 2009 attack. The judge also reprimanded Djibouti for continuing to use his earlier 2013 rulings internationally (in Dubai and with Interpol) against Boreh’s assets while it knew perfectly well they were based on a misunderstanding. In passing, he also noted that Djibouti had never presented any evidence that the alleged grenade attack in March 2009 had indeed taken place.
Boreh trial: the plaintiff may be fined Lord Falconer, a partner in the firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, whose partner Peter Gray
acted on behalf of the Djibouti government in its case against the businessman Abdourahman Boreh, in his turn apologised to the London court on 9 March for giving misleading information in the case (ION 1398). He even accepted in advance to pay any fines the court might impose against his firm. Gray has already given way to Philippe Rocher to handle this affair, while the two Djibouti officials acting in the case the Inspector General of State Hassan Issa Sultan, and the Attorney General, Djama Souleiman Ali have been dismissed. The British Judge Julian Martin Flaux will announce within the next two weeks whether he will lift the worldwide freezing order against Boreh’s assets imposed after the now obsolete guilty verdict for terrorism. The accusation of embezzlement will be heard in October. Unless it is put back to 2016.
Abdourahman Boreh scores a point in London High Court For the first time, the ongoing legal trial of strength between the Djibouti government and businessman Abdourahman Boreh has turned in the latter’s favour. This was at the Commercial Court, a subdivision of the High Court of Justice in London, on 13 November. Djibouti was represented by Khawar Qureshi and Jennifer Haywood retained by the firm Gilbson, Dunn & Crutcher, while Richard Waller and James Willan, taken by Byrne & Partners, acted for Boreh. During the hearing, Judge Flaux expressed his doubt on the validity of the terrorism accusation claimed by a Djibouti court against Boreh and deemed that the British courts had acted in error when they decreed a worldwide freezing of Boreh’s assets in September 2013. He requested more detailed information on this point from Djibouti’s lawyers and ordered them to pay 25% of Boreh’s legal costs.
IOG now battling against Dubai President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh has not swallowed the Dubai courts’ refusal to extradite Abdourahman Boreh. His retaliation was not a long time coming. On 8 July, the Djibouti government announced that it was cancelling the concession for the Doraleh Container Terminal awarded several years ago to the firm Dubai Port World (DPW) via the intermediary of the businessman Abdourahman Mohamed Boreh. At the time Boreh was close to President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh (IOG), but is now in exile. Djibouti took the matter to the Court of International Arbitration in London and DPW is continuing to operate the terminal until the court makes its ruling. This decision is not a million miles away from the refusal by the Dubai courts to extradite Boreh to Djibouti. To be sure, the Djibouti government accuses DPW of “corruption” for attributing Boreh unjustified advantages during the negotiation of the concession, namely consulting and construction contracts for his companies and taking stakes in his joint ventures abroad. There is nothing new in Djibouti’s pressure on DPW. Moreover, since around 2008 the company has not made any investment at all on the Doraleh container terminal. The Djibouti government decided to go a step further in its confrontation with the Dubai company, as it already has a safety net: last year it struck a partnership, forming the company Port de Djibouti as a joint venture between China Merchant Holding International and Port autonome international de Djibouti (PAID). DPW at the time saw this joint venture as unfair competition as it would enable the Chinese company to drain its knowhow and then replace it. The explanation was that via Port de Djibouti, the Chinese company was DPW’s de facto partner in the Doraleh container terminal, a partner that DPW did not want. It now remains to be seen what will be the fallout of this affair on the major Dubai investments in Djibouti: Hotel Kempinski and the Doraleh Oil Terminal owned by Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC).
IOG and Boreh battle it out in court The Djibouti authorities did not finally manage to obtain the extradition from Dubai of the businessman turned opponent Abdourahman Boreh. But they have not given up hope of getting their hands on the proceeds of the sale of Boreh’s stakes in certain companies. They had 30 days to lodge an appeal against the ruling by the Dubai court on 27 April rejecting their request to extradite Boreh. But as the Djibouti government lawyers did not appeal before the deadline expired, Dubai will have to give Boreh back his French passport, which had been taken from him pending the hearing. The businessman, who has dual French and Djibouti nationality, will therefore be able to travel again, after having been obliged to stay in Djibouti during the whole of the extradition proceedings. However, this does little more than change the seat of action of his legal dispute with the Djibouti government. To be sure, the latter should go ahead this week with the auction of the stakes in the company Djibouti Dry Port FZCO held by two firms owned by Boreh and his family, namely Dubairegistered Boreh International FZE and Hong Kongregistered Essences Management. The previous attempt to do so back in January had been blocked by Boreh’s lawyers, who filed an appeal with the Djibouti court because DDP FZCO is a Djibouti company (ION 1372).
IOG attacks one of Boreh’s partners President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh (IOG) is continuing his scorched earth policy against his former friend now opponent, Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh. In addition to instigating legal proceedings against him in Djibouti and various other countries (Spain, United Kingdom, Dubai and Malaysia for example), the Djibouti government has just gone on the attack against one of his trading partners in the region, the Somaliland businessman Djama Omar Saïd. The latter was arrested in Djibouti on 4 November, initially on a charge of cigarette smuggling, and his company Etablissements Djama Omar Said was closed. However, a week after his arrest, the authorities had still not supplied any evidence to back their accusation. He was finally freed on 10 November and summoned to appear in court from 22 to 24 November on the lesser charge of providing help to contraband and its organisation. Djama Omar Said is an Issak like IOG’s wife Kadra Mahamoud Haïd, so dignitaries from this community went to Djibouti from Hargeisa to ask the Djibouti First Lady to have him freed. Djama Omar Said is the chairman of the Ominco Group and has been Boreh’s friend and business partner for over thirty years and has acted as his agent in a business distributing cigarettes in Somaliland. His arrest is thus an act of intimidation to push him to break commercial ties with Boreh, since Djibouti’s strategy, on both the legal and police fronts, is to strangle Boreh of funds by cutting off his sources of revenue.
No end in the war against Boreh The businessman Abdourahman Boreh is in court in Dubai, at the request of the Djibouti authorities. President Ismaël Omar Guelleh is making unending legal initiatives to get the head of his former friend, businessman Abdourahman Mahamoud Boreh, now living in exile from where he supports the Djibouti opposition. Djibouti has already instigated 25 separate legal proceedings against Boreh and members of his family (ION 1360) and in addition has reactivated Interpol against him on an old arrest warrant issued by a Djibouti court. Boreh has now consequently found himself stranded in Dubai for a month, until the local judiciary decides on Djibouti’s request for his extradition. Boreh’s lawyers have handed the Dubai prosecutor the documents from the Spanish court which had found against the Djibouti government in a similar extradition request in June 2011 (ION 1316). This is no first. The Djibouti government had already tried to have Boreh extradited from Dubai three years ago. Dubai refused on the grounds that it did not have an extradition treaty with Djibouti. It recently reiterated this position to the Djibouti general prosecutor Djama Souleiman. Things could be different now: last month the Djibouti Cabinet ratified a judicial partnership with the United Arab Emirates, which includes extradition for persons wanted for financial crime. However, even in that case Boreh’s extradition to Djibouti would seem unlikely, as he holds a French passport and could therefore only be extradited to France.
IOG hounds former friend Boreh President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh (IOG) doesn’t skimp when it comes to wreaking revenge on his former friend, the businessman Abdurahman Boreh. The latter has lived in exile for many years and joined the opposition movement Union pour le salut national (USN). So far, the Djibouti government has already filed 25 legal proceedings against Boreh and members of his family (his wife and their seven children) in five different countries: 9 in Dubai, 10 in France, 1 in Spain and 5 in the United Kingdom. The law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher has been in charge of this legal hounding on behalf of the Djibouti government since October 2012. At the hearing against Boreh in the London commercial court last month (ION 1358), this firm instructed the barristers Khawar Qureshi QC of Serle Court and Daniel Goodkin of 4 Pump Court. Boreh, for his part, used the law firm Byrne and Partners, which instructed Christopher Butcher QC and Kier Howie of 7KBW. High powered law firms and silks don’t come cheap, which goes to show the level of expenditure both sides undertook on the case. During the London hearing, counsel for the plaintiff (the Djibouti government) asked for the adversary to be condemned to pay the legal costs, which mounted up to the tidy sum of £4 million (€4.6 million).
Boreh, from IOG's friend to outcast N°1268 05/09/2009
Boreh has a busy summer The businessman Abdourahman Boreh, whose relations with the presidential couple are at an ebb, has not been idle during the last few weeks. Abdourahman Boreh has recently had separate meetings with three representatives of the Djibouti government in Dubai where he is now resident. The Indian Ocean Newsletter has managed to obtain the names of two of them. One is the governor of the Central Bank, Djama Mahmoud Haid, the brother of the First Lady, Kadra Mahmoud Haid. According to our sources, Haid asked Boreh to go back to Djibouti to make amends with the Head of State. To be sure, this conflict is increasingly troublesome for President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh (IOG) because it only aggravates a political situation that is already unhealthy and risks encouraging members of the opposition and certain Issadignitaries who are against his running for a third presidential term. However, Boreh does not seem to have accepted Haid’s slightly threatening request. The other Djiboutian dignitary Boreh met in Dubai in early August is a longstanding friend of his: the Minister for Home Affairs Yacine Elmi Bouh. This Mamassan (President IOG’s clan) is in dispute with certain ministers close to the First Lady (ION 1267) and is not particularly in favour of a third presidential mandate. Many of his protégés have been sacked – the latest in the line was the prefect of the capital city, Mahmoud Houssein who was dismissed last month. The presidential couple is wary of him, and his meeting with Boreh did nothing to appease their misgivings. Consequently, the possibility that he might be ousted is frequently raised. If it does indeed occur, he could be replaced by Hassan Said known as Modobé, the current head of security, who is a Mamassanand the same clan as he is.
N°1265 04/07/2009 IOG wants to smoke Boreh out Continuing its sniping against Abdurahman Boreh, the Djibouti administration seized a consignment of contraband cigarettes it claims are owned by him. On 1 July, Radio Télévision Djiboutienne (RTD) announced that a large consignment of contraband cigarettes had been seized on the Somaliland border. The cigarettes were branded Benson & Hedges, the same as those distributed by the firm Red Sea Central (RSC) owned by Abdurahman Boreh. These cigarettes were labelled “République de Djibouti”, like those on sale on the local market. The government hopes that it therefore holds “proof” that Boreh has broken tax legislation, something that the Finance Minister Ali Farah Assoweh, has been accusing him of for months. The latter even wrote to British American Tobacco (BAT) informing it that RSC had had its licence withdrawn, because the company was involved in “illicit contraband cigarette activity”. BAT then asked for proof of these accusations, which Assoweh was unable to provide. On the other hand, he did advise BAT to choose from among three busiensmen Rachid Djama Djilal, Houssein Mohamoud Robleh and Moussa Abdourahman a new operator in Djibouti. In fact, the last container of cigarettes RSC imported into Djibouti dates back to February 2009. Since it lost its licence in April, RSC no longer sells cigarettes in Djibouti, where some 500 boxes are still in limbo. On the other hand, it is still selling them in Somaliland and Somalia where RSC is BAT’s distributor. But the cigarettes sold there do not normally carry a label that they are for exclusive sale in Djibouti. For the Djibouti government, this seizure (the first for a long time) comes just at the right time to discredit Boreh. To such an extent that RSC’s executives are wondering whether it was a put up job, using an old consignment of cigarettes. Ironically, the head of the flying customs, Dileita Hassan, who is the brother of the Djibouti Prime Minister and who made the announcement on RTD about the seizure of contraband cigarettes, owes one to Boreh. Indeed, it was Boreh who had financed his trip to South Africa in December 2008, to train in the fight against contraband and undergo medical tests.
N°1257 07/03/2009 Net tightening around the Boreh family President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh and his wife Kadra Mahamoud Haid, are trying to put the courts onto the tail of the businessman Abdourahman Boreh now living in exile (ION 1251) with whom they are in open conflict. They want to dissuade him from taking any political action against them ahead of the presidential election in 2011. He and the members of his family still in Djibouti are therefore now the target of manoeuvres to tighten the net around them by the State services. Pressure on the BIMR The Djibouti authorities have tried to incite the Banque Indosuez Mer Rouge (BIMR) subsidiary of the French Crédit Agricole to take Abdourahman Boreh to court. A few weeks ago four gendarmes went to this bank’s headquarters to obtain details of the businessman’s banking transactions over the past few years. The bank manager, Luc Beiso, initially told them he could not supply this kind of information because of banking secrecy. The authorities then threatened him and he was obliged to comply. Other pressure has been applied on the BIMR to press charges against Boreh, who owes it a fair sum of money. To be sure, the bank has given Boreh a sizeable overdraft over the years and by the beginning of 2009 he owed it $ 6 million. In order to avoid legal proceedings in Djibouti, he paid off his overdraft at the BIMR, which therefore no longer has any reason to take him to court. The family in the line of sight The wrath of the presidential couple extends to his younger brother Mahmoud Mohamed Boreh: he was imprisoned on 13 February for threatening the
Honorary Consul of Djibouti in Rabat, Mohamed Lamhaouchi . This Moroccan businessman who is close to the Djibouti First Lady is in conflict with the Boreh family over a plot of land in Djibouti where he wants to build a villa. But the Boreh family claim to have already purchased the site and have begun the groundwork to build 65 villas. Faced with the Moroccan businessman’s insistence when he went to the site to claim the plot, the young Boreh brother lost his cool and made threats against him.
He was then arrested and underwent a severe interrogation under Colonel Bogoreh of the gendarmerie, before being freed on bail on 24 February. His trial is scheduled in March. Meanwhile, Abdourahman Boreh’s nephew, a young man of 23, was found dead in his home and the authorities concluded that he had killed himself. But the family is not so sure. This young man had previously confided to his mother that he had received threats from the Service de la Documentation et de la Sécurité (SDS, intelligence services) that they were going to finish with the Boreh family now that his uncle had left Djibouti. Safety zone In fact, the Djibouti authorities would appear to be waging a scorched earth policy around
Boreh.
Thus, anyone considered rightly or wrongly as being close to Boreh or having close
professional contact with him, risks being sacked. While they are at it, the authorities are also using this image of untouchable to settle some old scores. This is what happened to two Afar executives in January. The deputy director general of the Banque pour le Commerce et l’IndustrieMer Rouge (BCIMR, a subsidiary of the French bank Bred) and administrator representing the Djibouti government on the board of the same bank, Ibrahim Hamadou Hassan, was relieved of his functions and shunted aside as technical advisor to Prime Minister Dileita Mohamed Dileita. What is held against him is the fact that he had accorded Boreh overdraft facilities. In fact BCIMR under the leadership of Ould Amar Yahya did all it could last year.
Read part 1 here
Leaked- The case of Djibouti's Gulleh versus Boreh: final curtain
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