quash the conviction of disgraced banker Calvin Shabazz.

Shabazz was convicted on March 30, 1992 and was sentenced to 240 hours of community service for stealing $121,000 from the Bank of Bermuda where he was employed in a senior position earning $63,000 a year.

He was lent $310,000 by the bank in 1988 to bring his debts under control. One of the reasons for the loan was to pay off his mortgage of about $141,000, though the Bank discovered some two years later that he had only paid $20,000 on the mortgage.

Shabazz's lawyer Mr. Archie Warner's essential argument was that there was no written or implicit direction on the part of the Bank requiring him to use the loan to pay off the mortgage.

"Since there is no evidence of any written direction, there is no evidence on which a jury could convict so the conviction should be quashed,''he said.

Crown counsel Ms Sharon Kenny argued that the bank did direct Shabazz to pay his mortgage with the loan though this direction was not written down.

"Given the nature of the relationship between Shabazz who was then a senior officer at the bank and very familiar with the Bank's regulations regarding loans, and his own admission that he knew what the money was for, all these circumstances when taken together amount to a direction,'' she said.