After being stripped of his freedom, land and money, Abdullah turned
to a second lawyer, George Hazboun, in January 2019, hoping to recover
what is rightfully his. But the veteran lawyer was unable to plead his
case because the President of the Bar refused to grant him
authorisation to conduct litigation against another lawyer.
Eventually, Abdullah’s family caved in to a financial settlement in
order to bail him out of prison a month after his arrest.
During that period, Abdullah filed complaints with the Director of the
Public Security Department and the Director of Criminal
Investigations, but has yet to hear back from them.
“I signed papers for the lawyer to act on my behalf and to sell my
land, including a defeasance agreement. At first, things seemed
normal, and I did not have any inkling that my fate would be
imprisonment,” he told the ARIJ reporter.
In 2018, Abdullah was put behind bars; an unexpected ending to his
plan to invest 1,800,000JOD in buying and selling lands.
The complainant was forced to forfeit his rights in order to be
released from prison.
As Abdullah describes his harsh experience, his face betrays feelings
of oppression and hopelessness.
“The broker and the lawyer duped me of the availability of a buyer who
was of Arab nationality and a sheikh from the Gulf region. This person
was supposedly interested in buying plots of land that we agreed to
buy and invest in after I gave them 1,800,000JOD. He asked me to sign
a Power of Attorney to facilitate the sale process because the buyer
was abroad,” he said.
After about a month, the broker and the lawyer asked Abdullah to come
to the latter’s office to discuss how he could retrieve his money. He
had been insisting on getting his money back since they did not
implement the agreement they had with him.
The broker and the lawyer coerced Abdullah, and convinced him that
completing the deal and recovering his share of it required the
provision of lands worth 4 million JOD to match the size of the
prospective deal with the Gulf investor. This included the land that
they pretended to have bought with his money.
“We all went to the lawyer’s office in one of the suburbs of Amman. We
agreed to buy land owned by the broker and to pay off my money that
they had as soon as the buyer paid the price,” he said.
Later, it was agreed that the price of the land would be drawn over
two checks from the National Bank of Abu Dhabi and that the ownership
would be transferred after the financial rights of Abdullah were
collected and deposited in his account in one of the local banks. The
lawyer made an agreement to that effect.
The office manager of the sheikh from the Gulf (the buyer), demanded
guarantees for the value of the check until the ownership of the land
was transferred. They then agreed to sign the checks, the promissory
note and the agreement as a single unit and to register it with the
Bar Association later.
“The buyer requested that I be the guarantor of the bill, and I
refused the request. After the insistence of those present, I asked
for a written explanation about the reason for issuing the Bill of
Exchange and why I signed it as a guarantor. The lawyer intervened and
explained that ‘these details are included in the agreement that will
be concluded later,’” Abdullah told ARIJ.
Abdullah continued that he signed under pressure and because he needed
to recover his money that was in the possession of the broker.
“According to the complaint filed with the Bar Association, I had to
sign, so I became a guarantor of the buyer’s money along with the new
debt added to the original value through the Bill of Exchange or the
defeasance agreement.”
At the time, Abdullah did not realize that the lawyer was taking
advantage of his profession and his vast experience in legislation to
corner him into choosing between imprisonment or losing his money.
“I understood this too late!”
The man recalls with regret how he was then surprised by a judicial
notice from a person he did not know who was demanding the value of
the Bill. Soon, another lawyer and new parties were involved.
Negotiations with Abdullah began in order to implement a financial
settlement through which he would pay an additional sum of 1.5 million
JOD, which he was unable to do.
The Bill was then deposited at the Execution Department by another
lawyer, and Abdullah’s movable and immovable funds were seized while
the broker and the buyer’s agent were not impacted.
Abdullah communicated with the lawyer, Al-Adwan, and demanded a
solution to the problem that he caused. Al-Adwan told him that he
would settle the problem and forced him to sign a Power of Attorney.
When he checked with the court, he was surprised that the paper
printed by the lawyer and handed to the court with Abdullah’s coerced
signature contained an acknowledgment of the debt and a request for a
settlement.
Faced with this fraud, Abdullah resorted to another lawyer, George
Hazboun, to recover his rights in court.
In January 2019, his client filed an application for litigation
authorization with the President of the Bar Association. This
permission is the key to suing any member of the Bar Association
before Jordanian courts as per the Association law.
The President of the Bar, Mazen Irsheidat, has presided over the Bar
Association over two terms; the first from 2011 to 2013, and the
second from 2017 until present.
Irsheidat rejected the request without giving reasons.
This resulted in a triple loss. Abdullah lost his land, 4 million JOD,
and was handed prison sentence in mid-December 2018, lasting until the
beginning of January 2019; a result of issuing a check without
balance.
Abdullah’s family had to sign a settlement to bail him out.
The case ended with the broker’s escape after a complaint of fraud and
scam was filed against him with the Public Prosecution Department.
This was dropped as part of the deal to release Abdullah from prison
and due to the inability to obtain permission to dispute with the
lawyer.
*nickname