Top BCCI execs to be tried in Abu Dhabi.

ABU DHABI -- Thirteen top executives of Bank of Credit and Commerce International will go on trial Saturday in Abu Dhabi, home of the majority owners of the failed bank.

The defendants include BCCI founder and chairman Agha Hassan Abedi, a Pakistani entrepreneur who persuaded the ruling Nahayan family of Abu Dhabi to invest heavily in the bank.

The charges against the 13 former executives include dissipating funds and forging documents.

Abedi, who founded BCCI in 1972 and expanded it into a $20 billion business empire spanning 60 countries, has fled to Pakistan. Ten of the other 12 defendants have been held in Abu Dhabi since 1991, when the bank was forced to close amid allegations of massive fraud.

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