TDT | Manama
Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com
The High Court of Appeal has acquitted a man who worked for a fish sales company of seizing large sums of cash from the company’s Sadeem card by taking cash from petrol station customers and charging the company for petrol. handed down the verdict.
Lawyer Siddiqa Al-Mawari suggested that her client was involved in a case involving four defendants who falsified “Sadeem” fuel cards as employees of a company affiliated with the victim.
They seized a large amount of cash at the petrol station where the first defendant worked.
Prosecutors charged the first to fourth defendants with intentionally harming the profits of the victim company, alleging that they were employees entrusted with maintaining the profits of the victim company for the purpose of obtaining personal gain. .
The fifth defendant committed the first to fourth offenses by misusing the company’s ‘Sadeem’ card to collect cash from petrol station customers, billing the company for the same and dividing the profits among them. He was also charged with abetting the defendant.
Ms Al Mawali added that her client was employed by the company but had left the company several months before the incident in question.
In her memorandum of defense, she explained: “In the absence of any evidence linking the appellant to the charges, all evidence points to innocence rather than conviction.
The prosecution indicted the appellant on the basis of the statement of the fifth defendant, a gas station employee, who conspired with the remaining defendants to misuse the Sadeem card for commercial purposes.
The card statements submitted by the victim are from 2023, after the fourth defendant retired in November 2022, and the charges are misplaced and should be dismissed as a wrongful conviction. it is obvious.
It has also been established that the confession of one defendant to another is nothing more than evasion by leveling blame in the hope of evading or reducing punishment. ”
In his memorandum, Almawari maintained that his client denies the charges.
She said: “The prosecution indicted the appellant on the basis of a questionable statement by the fifth defendant that contradicted the evidence collection record.” I’ll check it out.”
The trial court appointed an expert on behalf of the appellant to scrutinize the details of Sadeem cards, indicate the numbers on those cards and the number on the appellant’s card, and identify the car in which the appellant traveled. ignored the request. and to identify the period during which the first, second, third and fifth defendants were involved in the misuse of the victim’s Sadeem card in order to ascertain the involvement of the appellant. However, the request was denied in violation of the right to defense. ”
At the end of her memorandum, she vacated the appellate judgment on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence and could not prove that he had committed the crime as he had been imprisoned before the incident, and that the court acquitted the appellant. requested to do so. Another criminal case has been pending since November 2022.
The High Court of Appeal acquitted the first appellant, ordering the reversal of the trial court’s judgment of six months’ imprisonment and permanent deportation from the Kingdom of Bahrain upon completion of the sentence.