THREE Australians charged in the United Arab Emirates with drinking alcohol and sexual harassment on a plane are expected to be deported after judges handed two of the men suspended sentences and acquitted the third last night, said a spokeswoman for the UAE airline, Etihad.
Mining executives Jeremy Snaith and William Sargent were in custody near Abu Dhabi facing drug, sexual harassment and intoxication charges.
The third Australian, David Evans, was charged with sexual harassment, indecent exposure and intoxication, but was released on bail.
The trio appeared in Abu Dhabi court, where judges last night found Mr Snaith and Mr Evans guilty, giving the men three-month and one-year suspended sentences respectively.
Mr Sargent has been acquitted of all charges.
The three men are expected to be deported within the next 24 hours.
Ross Hill, the Sydney-based solicitor acting for Mr Snaith and Mr Evans as well as their friend Mr Sargent, said yesterday the three flight attendants at the centre of the sexual misconduct allegations had waived their rights to privately prosecute the matter.
It has been five weeks since the three were arrested after they disembarked from a flight on the UAE national carrier, Etihad, while travelling for business purposes.
The three men appeared in court at the United Arab Emirates capital of Abu Dhabi, where the hearing was conducted in Arabic.
The trio had faced 15 years in jail and a public flogging, the Seven Network reported last night. Mr Snaith and Mr Evans are non-executive directors of the Australian mining group Jupiter Mines.
Businessmen booted out of UAE today
THREE Australian businessmen will be booted out of the United Arab Emirates today after a nightmare six-week stay which led to their trial on sexual harassment and intoxication charges.
Lawyer Ross Hill rejected allegations that the three men had been drunk and disorderly during their flight into the country or that they sexually harassed a flight attendant.
They had been tested for alcohol consumption and readings were negative, he said.
But he did admit there had been an argument aboard the Etihad Airlines flight from Sydney to Abu Dhabi on April 27.
Businessmen Jeremy Snaith and William Sargent have been in custody near Abu Dhabi facing drug, sexual harassment and intoxication charges.
The third Australian, David Evans, was charged with sexual harassment, indecent exposure and intoxication but was released on bail.
The three first-class passengers were arrested after getting off the Etihad flight from Sydney.
Snaith yesterday was handed a six-month suspended sentence, while Evans received a one-year suspended sentence.
Mr Sargent was acquitted of all charges.
Mr Hill said they were to be deported.
"They should be out of the country within 24 hours. We are very hopeful that that is the timeframe, but things never quite work as you expect in these countries. They are certainly free to go," Mr Hill told ABC radio.
Mr Hill said a row between the men and staff broke out after a series of electrical and mechanical problems.
He said the air conditioning wasn't working properly in the first class cabin and the men were told they couldn't use their laptops.
"The service was bad, there was not enough food and there were problems with their refrigeration," he said.
"That culminated in a rather extensive argument between several passengers and the cabin staff.
Mr Hill said the claim of sexual harassment against Evans related to him touching the arm of an attendant.
He said Snaith also was fined an unspecified sum for drinking some warm champagne served by the airline.
"Everyone be warned - don't fly Etihad unless you have a permit to drink alcohol, because if you don't and you have cross words with somebody you could end up in exactly the same position," he said.
"There was no alcohol factor involved. There was a whole lot of personality factors involved. They are the sort of issues we will be addressing, backed by irrefutable evidence, when we are out of here."
Update: 6 June 2007 from smh.com.au
The case of three Australians charged with drunken, lewd
behaviour aboard a first class flight to the Middle East is set to
move to a Sydney courtroom.
While businessmen Jeremy Snaith and David Evans were due to be
flown to Bangkok early this morning after being convicted in an Abu
Dhabi court of offensive behaviour and given suspended prison
sentences, their lawyer, Ross Hill, is preparing to sue the
airline, Etihad, for malicious prosecution and unlawful
detention.
Mr Hill says his clients are not only innocent of the charges,
which included being drunk, lewd and even naked in the first-class
cabin, but have spent a month in a desert prison eating camel, at
least in Snaith's case, and have suffered business losses.
But like everything else in this case the details are unclear.
Media reports from the United Arab Emirates yesterday claimed
Snaith returned a positive drug sample with traces of cocaine and
hashish. Mr Hill rejects this and insists the samples were switched
and came back from the laboratory with a different exhibit number.
Instead he says Snaith was convicted by three judges of using
offensive language, for which he received a six month suspended
sentence, and fined $330 for being a non-Muslim drinking without a
permit. "No-one is denying he had a drink but it was warm champagne
served by the airline," Mr Hill said.
Evans was convicted of using offensive language and touching a
cabin crew member on the arm for which he received a 12-month
suspended sentence. His alcohol and drug tests, taken when he got
off the flight, returned negative.
The third man, William Sergent, was cleared and has flown on to
Edinburgh, where he was originally headed on April 27 when he was
arrested and thrown into a desert prison for testing positive to
the prescription drug he takes to help him sleep.
Mr Hill said he argued the court did not have the jurisdiction
to hear the drug charges against Snaith. "These Arabic newspapers
are getting their information from the police officers who laid the
charges and would be rather embarrassed by the way it turned out,"
he said.
"It was clear on the prosecutor's own brief that there was a
problem with the test results. It was someone else's specimen which
came back from the lab. It had a different exhibit number."
Mr Hill said the men would prefer to appeal against the
convictions but that would mean staying in prison for another
month. "It's a hard balance for them - stay another month in prison
or cop it on the chin and get out of there."
He insisted all the alcohol tests came back negative, which
contradicts the airline's version that the men were drinking
heavily from their duty free purchases.
"We don't blame the authorities. They were doing their job. We
blame Etihad."
“Crisis? What crisis?” says Middle East airline
Sonja Koremans - B&T
Middle East airline Etihad this week denied it was facing a local PR crisis after three of its first-class Australian passengers spent more than a month in jail following an in-flight incident during a trip from Sydney.
After the trio were released from custody in the United Arab Emirates they quickly went on the offensive, giving multiple interviews to Australian media claiming their incarceration had been the result of an overreaction by the airline staff.
Their lawyer Ross Hill alleged the passengers got into a row because the air conditioning wasn’t working, the men couldn’t use their laptops, service was bad, there was not enough food and there were difficulties with refrigeration. The men were arrested when they landed and were charged with a range of offences including intoxication, sexual harassment and indecent exposure.
But as publicity over the case escalated, one of the men was acquitted while the other two were given suspended sentences. After the incident their lawyer claimed that the men were charged with breaching local laws by drinking without a licence, despite the fact that this referred to consuming alcohol on the plane which had, he alleged, been provided by the airline. He underwent a round of media interviews warning other passengers that they could be treated the same way if they flew with Etihad.
But Etihad’s head of corporate communications Iain Burns based in Abu Dhabi, denied the incident had harmed the airline’s image in Australia. He told B&T: “Crisis? What crisis? We are taking a reasonable stance on this – most men and women who read the reports will be glad that there is an airline like ours that cares about the safety of its staff and its passengers.
“It is having no impact whatsoever on the number of people flying on the airline from Australia to Abu Dhabi and beyond.”
He said he was not aware if the airline had implemented a crisis management plan.
But PR practitioners said the airline needed to take the issue seriously. Burson-Marsteller MD Walter Jennings told B&T: “To manage this crisis, you have to be in the dialogue, and pretending there is no crisis doesn’t make it go away. You need to out in front leading the conversation not trying drive behind and clean up. I would be suggesting a much more active involvement rather than pretending it isn’t an issue.”
“What it does do is chills the bones of the Australian business traveller. In my view it is doing a bit of damage of the airline and the country.
“You would also put an Australian face on this and put whatever occurred into an Australian perspective because when these gentleman land they will be putting a very Australian face on the issue. There are already so many misperceptions and misunderstandings regarding countries and businesses in the Middle East that anything that contributes to that is going to be blown out of proportion exponentially.”
However, travel consultant Geoff Smith of Geoff Smith Public Relations said the drama was unlikely to affect the airline’s image. He said: “The public would realise that the airline isn’t bad, it’s the three passengers who were so it shouldn’t have a detrimental affect on Etihad,” he said.
Sydney-based Hill & Knowlton, which was appointed to handle the airline’s PR earlier this year, declined to comment.
ETIHAD RESPONDS TO FALSE CLAIMS
|
Thursday, 16 October 2008
Etihad, Australia’s newest airline arrival has responded to what it says are false claims about needing to purchase a permit to consume alcohol onboard Etihad Airways.
Home | Travellers Good Buys | News | Stories | Competitions | Get Brochures | Travel Links | Contact Us | Old Site | 
