Turkish Cypriot businessman Asil Nadir, once a fugitive from justice for stealing millions from his British Polly Peck conglomerate, has died, Reuters reported, citing a social media post by his wife. He was 83.
Nadir was being treated at a hospital in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC), recognized only by Turkey, and died overnight, Turkish media reported hospital officials as saying.
Once one of Britain’s richest men and a Conservative Party donor, Nadir was accused of stealing from Polly Peck — a fruits-to-electronics conglomerate that had a meteoric rise in the 1980s — to fund a lavish lifestyle including purchases of antiques, racehorses and country houses.
Nadir fled Britain in 1993 on a private jet before the start of his trial for the KKTC, which has no extradition treaty with Britain and is not generally recognized internationally.
He spent the next 17 or so years mainly living under the radar at a secluded villa overlooking the Mediterranean in northern Cyprus, occasionally courting media on his claims of innocence and that he would never get a fair trial in Britain.
Nadir voluntarily returned to Britain in 2010, vowing to clear his name.
But in 2012, he was convicted by a British court of plundering millions from Polly Peck, which he bought as a struggling textiles manufacturer and built into a business powerhouse with a stable of brands from Japan’s Sansui Electric to a division of Del Monte fruits.
Four years into a 10-year sentence, in 2016, he applied to serve the remainder of his term in Turkey. After his transfer there, he was released after one night in jail.
Nadir had admitted to taking money from Polly Peck but insisted he always balanced the books by paying money into other parts of the business.
A charismatic figure, Nadir was revered in his native north Cyprus as a generous benefactor to the community.
But he also had enemies in the Greek Cypriot community, who accused him of cashing in on fruit crops on land seized in ethnically split Cyprus, which was divided after a Turkish military operation in 1974 following a brief Greek-inspired coup.