Vendettas by RAK ruler alarm foreign investors

Summary: A years-long campaign to slander and jail former RAK investment head Khater Massaad and persecution of RAKIA & RAKFTZA staff chill investor confidence in the emirate: Stirling

A current case against Khater Massaad by Ras Al Khaimah being tried in Bangladesh is causing global investors to think twice about the small northern state in the UAE. The government of Ras Al Khaimah, under Sheikh Saud bin Saqr al Qassimi has been waging a relentless campaign against everyone who put the tiny emirate on the map.

Khater Massaad, the one-time “Golden Boy of the Northern Emirates”, the architect of Ras Al Khaimah’s Free Trade Zone and Investment Authority, has been pursued for years by Sheikh Saud in a paranoid campaign of lawsuits and disinformation. Claiming that Massaad, who secured billions of dollars in investment for the backwater emirate of RAK, had embezzled funds and mismanaged the Investment Authority, all because Saud suspected Massaad of sympathising with Saud’s brother, Sheikh Khalid, who was challenging him for the throne.