LONDON 5 Feb (ANA) - A woman who blew £16m of unexplained wealth in Harrods has lost her appeal against a National Crime Agency bid to seize her luxury London home. 

The Court of Appeal has rejected Zamira Hajiyeva's attempt to stop the UK's first ever Unexplained Wealth Order from being implemented against her. 

Mrs Hajiyeva must reveal how she became wealthy enough to buy a mansion near Harrods and a golf course in Berkshire. 

She faces losing the properties if she can't provide proof of income.

Mrs Hajiyeva's husband is a state banker jailed for fraud in their native Azerbaijan.

The couple deny all wrongdoing - and Mrs Hajiyeva has not been charged with a crime in the UK. 

Dismissing the appeal on Wednesday, Lord Justice Burnett, the Lord Chief Justice, also refused to allow Mrs Hajiyeva to take the case to the Supreme Court - and ordered her to pay the National Crime Agency's (NCA) legal costs.

In the judgement, Lord Justice Burnett and two other senior judges said that Mrs Hajiyeva had been lawfully targeted by the first ever Unexplained Wealth Order (UWO) two years ago. 

"The relevant requirement for making a UWO [is that] the court must be satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the known sources of the lawfully obtained income available [to the targeted individual] would have been insufficient to enable him or her to obtain the property," said the judges. 

"In the present case Mr Hajiyev's conviction for fraud and embezzlement was only one of the strands.

"There was evidence of Mr Hajiyev's status as a state employee and the unlikelihood that his legitimate income... would have been sufficient to generate funds used to purchase the property."(ANA)

FA/ANA/5 February 2020-----