A city banker dubbed the “Rogue Trader” wept today as he started giving evidence in his long-running fraud trial.
Kweku Adoboli, 32, is accused of defrauding Swiss bank, UBS of £1.4 billion while working as a trader in the City. He is accused of gambling through his own greed and at one stage putting the bank at risk of losing £7.4 billion.
During the trial Adoboli’s lawyers had claimed he had not acted dishonestly and that colleagues on his desk in the global synthetic equities division knew what he had been doing.
Today Adoboli entered the witness box and is expected to give evidence for up to a week.
His QC Paul Garlick told him: “It has been 13 months since you wrote what the prosecution has described as a “bombshell” email (admitting that some of his trades had not been real) and this is your first opportunity to give evidence on oath to explain the circumstances of these events.”
Adoboli told Southwark crown court how he had been born in Ghana and spent his early years being brought up in Israel.
His father, who worked for the United Nations, was constantly on the move overseas and often left Adoboli and his sisters alone at home with his mother.
“The reality of having a father working in the UN is that he was often not at home and usually travelling around the world and he always told me to look after my mother and sisters so at an early age I learned to take responsibility,” Adoboli told the court.
Mr Garlick pointed out that Adoboli’s father had travelled to London to attend his son’s court case and was in court today to watch him give evidence.
At that point Adoboli’s eyes welled with tears and he found it impossible to talk. An usher passed him a paper hankie and he vigorously wiped his eyes and face then poured himself a glass of water before continuing.
He has pleaded not guilty to two charges of fraud and four charges of false accounting between October 2008 and his arrest in September last year. The case continues.
