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This incident started two years ago – around July 2002, it was unexpected to my mother as well as the whole family, who were unprepared for such an event. A few years before that my mother, as regional manager had the full power of attorney to sign for loans and other company expenses, and so she signed several loan guarantees to some of her employees so that they could take out loans – which they did and were paying them back regularly.
However, my mother was up for promotion to vice president and her Iranian counterpart wanted that job so he called the major executives in the US and exaggerated what was going on – what was simply allowing employees to take out loans was turned into fraud, embezzlement and a whole slew of other charges. None of these charges were true – all my mother did was sign for loan guarantees and the employees were paying them back.
And so she was taken into custody, without any charges or without access to a lawyer – her bank accounts were frozen and we had no money on our hands. It was a good thing that my father worked too otherwise we would be beggars. After a few months in custody, the banks filed cases against her for her credit cards and an outstanding loan, her car which was being financed had to be reclaimed. Our life went totally upside down – we were living in Dubai and had to suddenly move to Sharjah – my schooling was affected (I’m 18 now) and the way of life we had known changed.
After several months, charges were brought against her and eventually we had to hire a lawyer – but since we had no money we had to sell family land in Sri Lanka to pay for him. So things came to pass and eventually she was sentenced to 6 years which was appealed down to 2 years. And now she waits, rotting in jail until September which is when she is released. However, that is not all – the company has filed a 3 million Dhs civil suit against her for unrelated and untrue charges. So now we await that verdict too and at the same time try to rebuild our lives.
Shanaka
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