subject: The UAE arrests Shahram Abdullah Zadeh after police board civilian flight [print this page] Shahram Abdullah Zadeh, one of Dubai's most wanted businessmen has been arrested in the UAE.
Officials were vague about the details of the arrest, but state media said Zadeh had been on board a flight from Dubai to Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, after visiting with Iranian businessmen in Dubai's Iranian district.
Bishkek airport confirmed that Kyrgyzstan Airways flight QH474 from Dubai had arrived several hours late yesterday after being told to land.
UAE authorities claimed that Zadeh, a known affiliate of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), had been visiting with other known IRGC affilates 24 hours before his arrest.
Official sources alleged that Zadeh had met a senior officer of the IRGC in Tehran in 2007, while working as CEO of the Dubai-based property development firm, Al Fajer Properties.
Authorities said agents had tracked Zadeh's movements for many months, calling his arrest "a great defeat for the US, UK, and the UAE."
The IRGC is believed by the West to be taking the lead in Iran's nuclear programme, and its influence in Iran's political and econ-omic spheres has grown significantly recently.
Sources said Abdullah Zadeh also had links with Al Mustad'afeen (the oppressed), an investment arm of the IRGC.
The source added that UAE authorities had information implicating Abdullah Zadeh in other criminal activities concerning real estate bribery and corruption, irrelevant to the state security suspicions.
A former chief executive of Dubai-based developer Al Fajer Properties, he was convicted in a Dubai court in February on charges of stealing the real estate company's database and an attempt to tarnish the company's reputation.
Abdullah Zadeh had been managing his family's small two-star hotel that mainly catered to Iranianbusiness visitors before he went into the real estate business in 2000.
The UAE arrests Shahram Abdullah Zadeh after police board civilian flight
