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Summary The banker denies two charges of fraud and four of false accounting.
The UBS banker accused of gambling away $2.3 billion (1.78 billion euros) told a London court on Monday he did not believe he was a rogue trader.Kweku Adoboli, 32, told Southwark Crown Court that if what he was doing amounted to gambling, then so did the entire investment banking industry.Asked by his lawyer how he felt when the prosecution called him a rogue trader, he choked back tears and said: It doesnt feel fair.Adoboli stands accused of faking hedge deals, leaving Switzerlands biggest bank exposed to huge losses when the market turned against him.He denies two charges of fraud and four of false accounting in the period between October 2008 and September last year.Adoboli said the losses piled up after more senior UBS traders convinced him to change from a bearish to a bullish point of view in July 2011, expecting upward price movement in the stock market rather than downward sentiment. At that stage I broke, I just broke, he said.I should have held onto my conviction of fear of the market. At that very point I changed my position. That is why I dont believe I was a rogue trader. The switch backfired dramatically as the European banking sector continued to fall, he said. I wish I was a rogue trader, I wish I hadnt listened, he added.Adoboli, the son of a Ghanaian former United Nations official, began giving evidence on Friday in a trial which is now in its seventh week.
