Wife of ‘fat cat’ banker goes to court to overturn wealth order
THE wife of a “fat cat international banker” is seeking to overturn the UK’S first unexplained wealth order (UWO) at the Court of Appeal, arguing that it was based on her husband’s conviction after a “grossly unfair trial” in Azerbaijan.
Zamira Hajiyeva, who spent more than £16 million at Harrods in a decade, is attempting to overturn a UWO obtained by the National
Crime Agency (NCA) against a property in Knightsbridge, London, which was purchased for £11.5m in 2009 by a company in the British Virgin Islands.
Her husband, Jahangir Hajiyev, was the chairman of the state-controlled
International Bank of Azerbaijan from 2001 until his resignation in 2015, and was later sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment for fraud and embezzlement.
But Mrs Hajiyeva, 56, argues that her husband’s conviction, which she says was “the central feature” of the NCA’S application for the UWO, was a “flagrant denial of justice”.
Her barrister, James Lewis QC, told senior judges in London yesterday that Mr Hajiyev’s trial was “nothing of the sort”, and that his lawyers had not been permitted to cross-examine or call key witnesses.
He submitted that “shorn of Mr Hajiyev’s conviction, it is wholly unrealistic to suggest that the NCA could have sought and obtained the UWO”. Mrs Hajiyeva was the first person to be made subject to a UWO, a new power under so-called Mcmafia laws, named after the BBC organised crime drama and the book which inspired it.
A UWO allows the NCA to seize someone’s assets if they believe the owner is a politically exposed person (PEP) – someone from outside the European Economic Area in a position of power that makes them liable to bribery or corruption – and they are unable to explain the source of their wealth.
But Mr Lewis argued that Mr Hajiyev was not a PEP because the law which introduced UWOS required him to have been “entrusted with prominent public functions by an international organisation or by a state”.
In September, Mrs Hajiyeva fought off an attempt to extradite her to Azerbaijan to face fraud and embezzlement charges on the grounds that she would not get a fair trial.
Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett, sitting with Lord Justice Davis and Lord Justice Simon, will hear Mrs Hajiyeva’s challenge in a single day and judgment is expected to be reserved.