Elomar, Ibrahim v Director of Public Prosecutions (Cth); Elomar, Mamdouh v Director of Public Prosecutions (Cth) [2015] NSWCCA 214

Court of Criminal Appeal Supreme Court New South Wales Medium Neutral Citation: Elomar, Ibrahim v Director of Public Prosecutions (Cth); Elomar, Mamdouh v Director of Public Prosecutions (Cth) [2015] NSWCCA 214 Hearing dates: 11 August 2015 Decision date: 11 August 2015 Before: Macfarlan JA at [1]; R A Hulme J at [2]; Garling J at [9] Decision: Bail variation granted Catchwords: BAIL – variation application – offences of conspiracy to cause a benefit to be paid to a foreign public official – variation sought to permit applicants to travel to certain countries - where applicants have legitimate and established business interests overseas - Crown concession that relaxation of overseas travel restriction is appropriate – variation application granted Legislation Cited: Criminal Code 1995 (Cth) Category: Principal judgment Parties: Ibrahim Elomar Mamdouh Elomar Director of Public Prosecutions (Cth) Representation: Counsel:

Solicitors: Lawyers Corp Pty Limited Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions File Number(s): 2015/111437; 2015/111446

Judgment 1. MACFARLAN JA: I agree with R A Hulme J. 2. R A HULME J: Ibrahim Elomar and Mamdouh Elomar ("the applicants") have been charged with an offence contrary to ss 70.2 and 11.5(1) of the Criminal Code 1995 (Cth) of conspiracy to cause a benefit to be paid to a foreign public official. In short, it is alleged that they, and others, conspired to cause a substantial bribe to be paid to an unknown third party with the intention of influencing a public official (or public officials) in Iraq in order to secure construction contracts. 3. They were served with court attendance notices on 19 February 2015 and first appeared before the Downing Centre Local Court on 25 March 2015. Bail was granted by the Local Court on certain conditions, including that they surrender their passports and any other travel documents and not apply for any new passport or travel document. Another condition requires the provision of security in the sum of $10,000. 4. The applicants seek a variation of their bail conditions so as to permit them to travel overseas to certain nominated countries. 5. The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions ("the DPP") concedes that the applicants have established and legitimate business interests in Australia and overseas. Ibrahim Elomar does not have any criminal history. Mamdouh Elomar has a criminal history but it is not of a nature that militates against him being on bail. 6. The DPP concedes that a relaxation of the restriction of overseas travel is appropriate in all the circumstances, bearing in mind the other conditions of bail, including an agreed variation of the security requirement to increase the sum in the case of each of the applicants to $2 million. 7. Having reviewed all of the material that has been placed before the Court I am of the view that the Crown's concession is reasonable and should be accepted. 8. There is some discrepancy between what the parties understand about some of the existing bail conditions and what is reflected in the computerised records of the Court (JusticeLink). For abundant caution, I propose that the bail be varied by deleting all present conditions and replacing them with the following: