It was a simple answer to a straightforward question.
“I’ve heard of him. I didn’t meet him at all.”
But those 10 words formed part of a case that led to Bahrain businessman Nader Al AlaAli being slugged $20,000 by Racing Victoria stewards. They found him guilty of giving misleading evidence in that case, which probed his relationship to a man linked to an international breeding and racing operation, a cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme and money laundering.
AlaAli is challenging the finding at the Victorian Racing Tribunal in an appeal based on semantics. At the heart of his argument is his claim that he was merely telling the truth when stewards asked him if he had heard of Amer Adbulaziz Salman. He says he has no business links to Salman and was never asked to reveal that the same man was also his brother-in-law.
These are the details that the tribunal has to unravel.
In November last year, Racing Victoria stewards found AlaAli guilty of breaching racing rule AR 232 (i) – giving them misleading evidence during an interview.
The tribunal heard AlaAli’s Brookdale Racing bought horses from Salman’s Phoenix Thoroughbreds in 2024, and Victorian racing’s governing body had been performing a background check into the transfer of horse ownership.
The sales price of the horses was listed as $3.17 million. Racing Victoria would later value the stock at “tens of millions” of dollars. Stewards were concerned about the transaction being “legitimate”.
They knew Salman was being investigated over a billion-dollar cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme in New York. He was later jailed to a term of 15 months for conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Stewards were also concerned because Salman’s company Phoenix Thoroughbreds had been banned from racing horses in several countries, including Australia, because it could not prove the source of its wealth.
Phoenix Thoroughbreds, which had raced several high-profile horses in Australia such as Loving Gaby and 2020 Golden Slipper winner Farnan, was also accused of buying horses with laundered money.
This masthead reported in August 2020 that Salman was accused by a prosecution witness in a New York court in November 2019 of stealing more than $150 million in the billion-dollar OneCoin cryptocurrency scheme.
Prosecutors accused Salman of spending some of the money on expensive racehorses. He agreed to a plea deal and was jailed in July last year.
When stewards first interviewed AlaAli in August 2024, they wanted to know if there was any connection.
They asked AlaAli if he was “aware of Mr Salman from Phoenix Thoroughbreds?”
Al A’Ali told stewards: “Yeah, I’ve heard of him. I didn’t meet him at all. I heard of him. I got his name in the documents.”
Stewards asked a follow-up question: was AlaAli’s Brookdale Racing, a business based in Australia, a front for Phoenix Thoroughbreds?
“No, no, we don’t have anything to do with Phoenix at all,” AlaAli replied. “I don’t have a need, personal or professional.”
Once again, AlaAli did not reveal that Salman was his brother-in-law.
But stewards discovered seven months later, in March 2025, that the pair was related by marriage.
AlaAli was asked to front stewards again, this time in July 2025. He was asked if Salman was married to his sister.
“Yes, correct,” he replied. “He is my brother-in-law. But business wise, we don’t have any relation. There was no relation to business. What is business in the office and home is different. We don’t mix these things.”
Stewards charged AlaAli four months later.
“The information that AlaAli and Mr Salman were brothers-in-law was a relevant and reasonable disclosure to provide to the stewards during this interview [in August 2024], and particularly when asked directly,” they said.
“It was imperative the sale of these horses were examined closely, and all transactions were legitimate, and that bona fides were established to ensure integrity in the process.”
But AlaAli’s legal counsel, Hamish Esplin, said the stewards’ case against his client was unfair, unreasonable and failed the correct legal test.
He said it was clear from the start stewards were asking his client about business connections, or associated entities, and not an “individual relationship”.
“My client has embraced that notion, and not tried to be objective or stubborn in any sense,” he told the tribunal.
Esplin said the flaw with the stewards’ case was that it required “mental gymnastics” from his client to “give answers to questions that have not been plainly put to him”.
He said his client was not only truthful, but “addresses the question that was put to him”.
“There is no evidence to suggest … that Mr Salman has anything to do with either Brookdale or AlaAli in the context of this investigation. None,” Esplin said.
The tribunal has retired to consider a verdict, and a ruling is expected in coming weeks.
Payne partnership ends
In unrelated racing news, decorated racing siblings Michelle and Patrick Payne have dissolved their training partnership.
The pair announced the mutual parting of ways via a statement days after truck driver Peter Butler and three of the Paynes’ horses were killed in a road crash at Meredith south of Ballarat on Monday.
“Michelle will be stepping back from the larger training operation to focus on a smaller team at home, working closer to her father and retaining a few horses in Ballarat,” the statement revealed.
“Patrick Payne Racing will continue as a full training operation, Patrick will remain in control of the horses at his current training property.
“Our priority is to make this transition as smooth and straightforward as possible for both owners and horses.”
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