Former tycoon Asil Nadir has been found guilty of a total of 10 charges involving the theft of millions of pounds from his Polly Peck empire.

An Old Bailey jury convicted Nadir, 71, of 10 thefts from the former conglomerate totalling £29m and cleared him of three charges.

Polly Peck International, once a major UK company, collapsed in 1990 after a Serious Fraud Office investigation.

Sentencing will take place on Thursday but his wife said he planned to appeal.

Nadir fled the UK in 1993, while awaiting trial, and remained a fugitive in northern Cyprus until 2010 when he suddenly returned.

The Turkish-controlled territory is not recognised as a state and has no extradition treaty with the UK.

After the verdicts Nadir’s 28-year-old wife, Nur, said: “A guilty man does not come back to face justice of his own accord.

“My husband came back voluntarily. Polly Peck was his life. He wants justice for himself and for the tens of thousands of shareholders and employees.

“This unhappy affair is certainly not over yet.”

PPI began as a small fashion company but expanded into the food, leisure and electronics industries under Nadir’s ownership, growing into a business empire with more than 200 subsidiaries worldwide.

In 1989 PPI bought the fresh fruit giant Del Monte for $875m but a year later his empire fell apart after the SFO were called in.

Stock exchange darling

By 1990 it was on the FTSE 100 index and was one of the stock exchange’s best performing companies but the share price collapsed after the SFO raided PPI’s offices.

It emerged that the SFO case controller, Lorna Harris, had not fully briefed the then Attorney General Sir Nicholas Lyell QC on the issue, and he had inadvertently misled Parliament as a result.

Michael Mates MP, then a Conservative minister and friend of the businessman, attacked the SFO’s handling of the case in an extraordinary speech in the Commons.

He quit after it emerged he had bought Nadir a watch inscribed: “Don’t let the buggers get you down”.

BBC home affairs correspondent Dominic Casciani said the outcome of the trial would appear to be a major victory for the SFO.

The trial last seven months and the jury returned on Monday with three guilty counts and one acquittal before retiring again and returning their remaining verdicts on Wednesday.

The charges Nadir has been convicted of are:

• Stealing £1.3m from PPI to pay for PPI shares in June 1989
• Stealing £1m from PPI to pay for antiques in December 1989
• Stealing £3.25m from PPI in March 1990 and placing it in 19 different end destinations
• Stealing £5.15m from PPI for the purchase of shares to prop up the company in August 1987
• Stealing £5m from PPI to buy shares in the Gunaydin newspaper group in Turkey in July 1988
• Stealing £1.3m from PPI to buy shares in November 1988
• Stealing £2.6m from PPI to pay for shares in travel company Noble Raredon in March 1989
• Stealing £4m from PPI to invest in his investment trust which held shares in PPI in June 1989
• Stealing £5m from PPI for various personal uses in August 1990
• Stealing $500,000 from PPI to buy shares in an educational video company.

At the beginning of the trial the prosecutor Philip Shears QC claimed Nadir had stolen up to £150m from PPI for himself and his family and said the 13 charges he faced were sample charges.

The trial heard Nadir, a British citizen of Turkish-Cypriot background, was a well-respect businessman in Turkey and a major employer in Turkey and northern Cyprus.

The trial heard of a letter Turkish President Turgut Ozal wrote to Margaret Thatcher in September 1990 – two months before she resigned as UK prime minister – asking her to ensure UK authorities acted with “fairness” towards PPI.