Polly Peck International Founder Asil Nadir's Bid for U.K. Bail Is Granted

Asil Nadir, the founder of Polly Peck International Plc who fled to northern Cyprus in 1993, can return to the U.K. on bail before standing trial in London for embezzling 30 million pounds ($47 million).

Nadir’s bid for bail was granted and he must attend court in London on Sept. 3, Judge David Bean said at a hearing today at the Old Bailey criminal court. Within eight hours of returning to the U.K. he must be fitted with an electronic security tag, Bean said.

Nadir’s lawyer, William Clegg, told Bean his client had agreed with the U.K. Serious Fraud Office, which is prosecuting the case, to return to London, surrender his passport, visit the police every week and attend his criminal trial.

“Mr. Nadir is today anxious to return to this country and face his trial,” Clegg said before the ruling. Nadir has already taken an option to rent an apartment in London, his lawyer said.

Nadir fled the U.K. after he was charged with theft and false accounting. Polly Peck was a food-packaging firm that collapsed in 1990 after it failed to pay creditors. Administrators found more than 700 million pounds were unrecoverable from the subsidiaries.

Victor Temple, a lawyer for the SFO, said during the hearing that the agency would not oppose bail if Nadir appeared in court to request it.

To contact the reporters for this story: James Lumley in London at jlumley1@bloomberg.net; Lindsay Fortado in London at lfortado@bloomberg.net.

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