Dubai: An Egyptian advocate collapsed in Dubai’s highest court on Monday after suffering a cardiac arrest while defending an Emirati lawyer accused of corruption and fraud.

The Emirati lawyer, K.K., is to spend three years in jail after Dubai Cassation Court convicted him of embezzling £60 million (Dh348 million) from Thailand’s ex-prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, over a £150 million deal to buy England’s premier league Manchester City Football Club.

Fifteen minutes into his closing argument before presiding judge Mohammad Nabeel Riyadh, Ali Obaid suffered a sudden cardiac arrest before falling to his knees, hitting a wooden stand and collapsing to the floor unconscious.

Presiding judge Riyadh immediately held the hearing in recess to allow court police to call for an ambulance.

Obaid, from Alexandria, died later in hospital after repeated attempts failed to resuscitate him in courtroom 20.

Gulf News has learnt that Obaid was a diabetic and heart patient. Minutes before his collapse he requested the court’s permission to drink water.

Advocate Obaid and his compatriot fellowman advocate Mukhtar Abdul Raouf were brought in especially from Egypt and obtained a special authorisation to defend K.K.

Shortly after paramedics rushed Obaid to hospital, advocate Abdul Raouf took the stand and produced nearly an hour-long closing argument.

At around noon, the Cassation Court handed an irrevocable judgement in which it rejected K.K.’s appeal and confirmed his three-year jail term.

K.K. was convicted of embezzling the cash after it was deposited in his law firm’s bank account as an entrustment for the Thai premier to purchase Manchester City Football Club.

However K.K. was cleared of breach of trust, a separate charge of embezzlement, attempted fraud and forgery.

He pleaded not guilty before the Courts of Misdemeanour and Appeal relating to charges of defrauding and embezzling Shinawatra’s money.

The Emirati defendant was also acquitted of embezzling $25.4 million from Shinawatra which he had transferred to the defendant’s account. He was cleared of three other embezzlement counts, forgery and fraud.

Meanwhile the claimant’s civil lawsuit has been referred to the Dubai Civil Court.

Prosecutors charged K.K. of convincing the former Thai premiere to open an account in his name and transfer the money to avoid it being seized by European authorities due to the political tensions that Shinawatra faced in Thailand.

The former premiere did so after agreeing to be commissioned to run the account, but the defendant, according to prosecutors, deposited the money into his personal account.

K.K.’s defence lawyers contended that the case was based on photocopies and prosecutors failed to present documents that were stamped or signed by the claimant.

The accused countered the authenticity of the documents submitted. The defence contested that the signatures were forged and that this was evident when prosecutors asked the claimant about the original copies of the documents subject to dispute but Shinawatra, who was sentenced to jail in absentia by a Thai court over different fraud charges, failed to submit the original copies.