Parrikar to raise issue of convicted Goan footballer with

Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar today said he would raise the issue of Goan footballer Ryan D'Souza who was handed a 517-year imprisonment by a Dubai court for fraud, with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.

D'Souza and two others had been found guilty by the court in April this year.

The issue of "false implication" of D'Souza was raised in the Legislative Assembly by Congress MLA Nilkant Halarnkar.

The MLA said D'Souza was taken to Dubai to play for the football team FC Bardez and was made to work in the office of its owner Sydney Lemos, one of the convicts.

"D'Souza was working in the office of Lemos and was arrested at the (Dubai) airport when he was heading back to India," Halarnkar said.

He said the residents of D'Souza's village in north Goa have been demanding intervention of the External Affairs ministry in securing his release from the Dubai prison.

In his reply, Parrikar said he would take up the issue with Swaraj during his visit to Delhi next month.

"(However) I cannot decide on merits of the case. It depends on facts of the case recorded with the court. I sympathise with him (D'Souza). I will take up the issue with the ministry.

Lemos, his wife Valany and D'Souza were convicted by the Dubai Misdemeanours Court in the 515 cases of fraud filed against them and were sentenced to one year in jail each in 513 cases and two years in jail for the remaining two cases.

Valany had been sentenced in absentia.

Lemos, from Mapusa in north Goa, was the chief executive of Exential, a forex trading company in Dubai Media City. Investors lost over $200 million when Exential failed to pay out after promising 120 per cent returns on a $25,000 (Dirham 91,800) investment.

The Exential Group took money from investors promising huge returns by investing the money in the foreign exchange market. In the beginning, investors were paid, but gradually the payments stopped.