A wealth manager facing imprisonment for pawning former Premier League star Edgar Davids’ £188,000 modern art collection has been unsuccessful in her bid to withdraw guilty pleas on fraud charges.
Nabila Habiby, 39, secured loans amounting to £31,500 against 37 paintings and artworks. She gained access to Mr Davids’ home in Hadley Wood, Hertfordshire, after he entrusted her with his property and keys.
The renowned footballer, who enjoyed a trophy-laden career with the Netherlands, Ajax, Juventus, and Tottenham, discovered his art collection was missing when pieces were auctioned by pawnbrokers, with one even surfacing in Hong Kong. He had believed the collection was safely in storage.
Ms Habiby pleaded guilty last September to two counts of fraud and has been warned she could face a prison sentence of up to 34 months.
But her sentencing hearing was delayed after she mounted a bid to withdraw the guilty pleas, arguing she had not understood what she was admitting and felt under “pressure” to confess to the crimes.
Habiby also put forward emails she says are newly unearthed and came from Mr Davids, where it is suggested he told her to “get rid of the paintings”.
Prosecutor Mark Seymour told a hearing at Wood Green Crown Court there was no proof that the emails were genuine and argued there is an “obvious likelihood these are emails which have been falsified”.
Habiby argued that she had “misunderstood” the elements of the criminal offences, had struggled to hear from the dock and complained about a “hectic” day in court with Tube strikes and a journalist sitting in the public gallery.
She insisted the new emails were genuine and provided her with a viable defence at trial.
But Judge Tim Godfrey rejected Habiby’s bid to withdraw her guilty pleas, pointing out she had refused to allow examination of her discussions with her lawyers and there was “real doubt as to the authenticity” of the new emails.
“I found Ms Habiby’s evidence in court to be altogether vague, evasive and unworthy of belief,” he said.
“She claimed not to understand what was taking place and what she was being asked to do with rearraigned.
“I simply don’t believe that.”
The court heard Mr Davids placed his faith in Habiby, who was a friend, to make arrangements for his possessions to go into storage when moving from his Hertfordshire mansion to a smaller central London apartment in December 2014.
Habiby took his collection of works by artists Paul Insect and Ron English, which he had bought from the Opera Gallery in New York between 2006 and 2012, to pawnbrokers in 2015 and 2016.
She now says the money from these transactions was distributed according to Mr Davids’ instructions, including to his then-girlfriend, but the judge found she had produced no evidence to back up the claim.
Mr Davids has since recovered 11 of his paintings but 25 works of art are gone after being sold on by the brokers when Habiby defaulted on the loans.
Mr Davids realised what had happened in 2017 when a man in Hong Kong bought one of the works, noticed the ex-footballer’s name on the back, and got in touch through Instagram to find out the history of the piece.
Habiby, who has worked in the past as a wealth manager and has degrees in applied science and international business, also has a conviction for defrauding another friend, in 2016, by using her bank card to pay almost £3,000 of rent on a Cadogan Square flat.
Habiby watched the judge’s ruling on Wednesday over a videolink from her home in Belgium.
When entering her guilty pleas last September, nearly four years after first being charged, she was told she faces a possible sentence of up to 34 months in prison.
When giving evidence on Monday, she insisted that she “had the permission of Mr Davids” to dispose of the paintings, insisting: “He asked me to do something and I did it for him.”
She described Mr Davids as “my best friend, he was like my older brother” and said she had helped him with investments while staying at his home.
Habiby has been ordered to return to the UK to be sentenced on July 3.
