Ólafur Ólafsson, former majority owner of Kaupþing Bank, has requested the reopening of the Al-Thani case, for which he in February was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison for being party to market manipulation.
Ólafur believes that the Supreme Court confused him with a different person in a telephone conversation between two men used as evidence against him, ruv.is reports.
In the telephone conversation an ‘Óli,’ is referred to, which is short for Ólafur. Prosecutor Björn Þorvaldsson maintained that the Óli in question is Ólafur Ólafsson.
However, the defendant has reasoned that he is not the person being discussed in the telephone conversation but lawyer Ólafur Arinbjörn Sigurðsson.
Ólafur Ólafsson’s lawyer, Þórólfur Jónsson, states that the telephone conversation was central to Ólafur’s conviction.
Þórólfur points out that Björn has not been able to prove that his client is the person being referred to in the conversation, while one of the men talking has stated that Ólafur Ólafsson was not being discussed.
On February 12, the heaviest sentences ever given for economic fraud in Iceland were announced by the Supreme Court of Iceland.
Hreiðar Már Sigurðsson, former CEO of the bank, got a sentence of five and a half years, Sigurður Einarsson, former chairman of the board, got four, while Ólafur and Magnús Guðmundsson, director of Kaupþing in Luxembourg, got 4.5 years each.
The case concerns the fabrication of Sheik Mohammed Bin Khalifa Al-Thani of Qatar’s acquisition of a 5-percent share in the bank two weeks before the banking collapse in 2008
