I’ve thought long and hard about what I wanted to say to everyone. How I wanted to say it. Truthfully, I have been hurt. It has taken me a couple years before I was able to come out of my depression. Some of you are new and others, I have hired myself. So, let me start from the beginning.

I founded Mediastow in 2005 and borrowed a total of 870k dhs from Yaha Al Kodmani

(Yamen’s dad and 45% shareholder) for my stake of 40%. Yamen got a token 15% in the promise that once the company becomes profitable, his dad would transfer the shares. I also slaved for the company for years at a well below average salary. This is not uncommon, but I want to point out that I was not rewarded for this with sweat equity. I paid in hard cash for every share I own in this company. PLUS, I founded it and built everything in it.

I have built this company from nothing to something. I wrote every code. I created every process. I established every policy. In other words, I am Mediastow. 

And you’re in my house.

I have been sued twice in Dubai. The first was a competitor and he went after me with a made up case. It lasted a full year until I cleared my name. It cost me 25k dhs when I was struggling to pay rent and couldn’t even fix the radiator in my car. I was paying myself 10k dhs a month for years to run Mediastow. A big paycut from my previous job.

What I learned from my first case is that UAE law heavily favors the plaintiff by default. I also learned that winning a case is a small part of the battle. The damage is to your reputation, your business opportunities, etc. For example, the competitor used to tell companies that we will be shut down shortly. But we survived. No one helped me. My partners stood silently and offered me kind words. “Stay strong,” they would say. I survived, no thanks to them. Alone.

Ever since then, I have made up with the competitor (who tried to acquire us a couple times) and it’s water under the bridge. My mother made me promise to let it go. I also learned that when they say business is war, it’s not a metaphor. This is real. 

Nothing prepared me for the second lawsuit. I never imagined that someone can be this creative in falsifying facts. The best way I can liken this is to Trump’s idea of facts. But also that I knew I had everything meticulously documented, and that would make it easy to clear up any arising issues.

The prosecutors never called or interviewed me. They said they tried to reach me but could not and had a number I don’t recognize. The police had no problem, so that’s interesting. I did not think the judge would deny me due process and sentence me from the first hearing.

Not once did anyone give me an opportunity to defend myself.

I didn’t think they would take the word of a consultant paid by the plaintiff as evidence. It’s literally what the law says you can’t do. But now you have to tell another judge that the first judge didn’t follow the law.

So what happened? Let’s go back a little.

Yamen and I have had trust issues ever since we took a loan from RAKBank, and he disappeared right after for days. He just vanished, with him the only person with access to the money. After a couple weeks, he re-emerges and gives it back missing 150k dhs. He just took the money like “hahaha”.

The thing is, I thought he was my friend, so my instinct is not to go to the police. My instinct is to talk to him. We never really resolved that issue and it kept lingering. I have repeatedly told Yamen that I was not happy with the partnership arrangement and that I wanted to change the way things are. I was hinting that I wanted to buy them out, or at the very least increase my stake to a controlling majority. 

I felt that this was my creation and I wanted to have control over it. If that wasn’t going to be possible, then I would have resigned and started something else. Yamen avoided this conversation whenever I would bring it up. 

The relationship between us continued to be tense. Then, his ERP system went down and I was able to save it and back it up before the server was lost. He didn’t want to hire people to fix it and wanted me to do it. He yelled at me and talked to me like I worked for him. I remember that phone call very well. That made me decide that I absolutely did not want to help him. You don’t demand and yell for a favor. I’ve already had it with him.

This was a turning point when Yamen decided to make it personal. He blames me for his own failure.

Then entered the lawyers. Firas (their lawyer, who is also from Suwaida, pictured above) openly told me that they are making numbers up. I would say, “but that’s not true!” and he would say to me, “It doesn’t matter.” How he is allowed to practice law is beyond me. They started coming up with the story that they think every freelancer is not real. Bring auditors. I said sure. Go ahead, audit. I asked Shehzad, the accountant, to provide them with everything they asked for.

Evidence file: Mediastow Sudan team working with Dubai staff

Guys, this is all 100% honest truth. Not a single word is a lie or even exaggerated.

At that time, I honestly thought that they were genuinely suspicious. I thought they wanted to find answers, but I later found that they were simply building a case. That very report was used in a case claiming that I have embezzled funds and that those staff don’t work for Mediastow.

Can you believe that they were able to convince the prosecutors that anyone who doesn’t have a visa must not be working or paid by Mediastow.

Now I have to explain freelancers, how we pay them, how they work, how we hire them… for every little claim, I have to explain and explain. Explain, not to the prosecutors, because they never EVER talked to me.

The case went straight to court, without ever speaking with the prosecutor. The First Instance judge sentenced me from the first hearing, without allowing me to defend myself.

It was a cruel case filled with lies. I have at times reached out to some of you for help. I asked Shehzad and pleaded with him to provide me with reports about payments made. I wanted to show proof of things that happened. I want you to  honestly think about this: I am behind bars, asking the accountant to send me a report of something that is in the system, something that is real, to prove something. He says no, he’s not allowed. Please tell me, who is the criminal and who is the victim?  

The case is simply this: all freelance workers are not real and I stole all this money to benefit myself. Of course some of those freelancers continue to work with the company until today. All the writers, editors, analysts.. All of them weren’t real? I had ample evidence of the work they did, the clients they did the work for, and their communication about it. It was really easy to prove. 

But proving things like this is a very long and complicated process. It would have been normally settled at the Prosecutors, but they never talked to me. Instead, they took their inability to reach me as proof of my guilt. The first instance judge agreed that this was sufficient evidence of guilt, and I did not deserve due process. What this means in practical terms is that I wasn’t able to get the court to appoint an expert auditor until I was already behind bars.

Anyway, the point of all this is, I fought all the way until the very end. I beat the case. The court said I was innocent. But, of course, I paid a heavy price. But what I’m really trying to tell you is this:

I beat the case. Dubai Courts said I’m innocent, after finally allowing me to show my evidence.

I would like to keep an open line of communication with everyone. I want you to know who founded this company. I will be absolutely and completely transparent with everyone.

Find me on Twitter, @elzubeir_mo.

Drop me a line.