High Criminal Court acquits one and jails another over BD74,000 card fraud

Twenty-seven bank cards and BD74,885 in alleged sham payments ended with a split verdict at the High Criminal Court, which acquitted one defendant. A second defendant was jailed for five years and ordered deported in a fraud case tied to tax and bill payments.

The court also fined the second man BD3,000 and ordered that he be removed from Bahrain after serving his sentence. According to the case file, prosecutors said the scheme covered 32 confirmed and 12 unconfirmed transactions made with 27 different bank cards to pay taxes and government charges on behalf of several companies, with the total amount reaching BD74,885.040. The payments were processed through an establishment the court found was under the sole control of the second defendant.

Acquittal

At an earlier hearing, defence lawyer Islam Ghonaim pressed for the first defendant’s acquittal, arguing that his client had denied the charges from the start of the investigation and that nothing in the file tied him firmly to the disputed payments. He said there was no technical or physical proof linking him to the transactions under scrutiny. Ghoneim told the court that what had been gathered in the case boiled down to untested inquiries and unsupported statements.

Link

He pointed out that the cybercrime report ruled out any link between the first defendant and the disputed operations; that the seized phones contained no data or messages that incriminated him; and that the establishment used to process the transactions was run solely by the second defendant. Witnesses, including partners in the companies involved, said the first defendant neither took part in nor knew about the payments, he added. In its reasons for clearing the first defendant, the court said the file was empty of any firm proof that he had committed the crimes ascribed to him or knew about them, and that what was raised against him amounted to assumptions.

Transactions

It noted that he had told investigators he did not deal with any financial transactions and that his work was limited to general supervision and administrative and marketing follow-up, with no part in handling payments or using bank cards. According to his account, the second defendant alone was responsible for making payments with foreign cards. The court also referred to the report of the Anti-Economic and Electronic Crimes Directorate, which stated that the first defendant’s phone did not contain any data, conversations or applications that tied him to the second defendant or to the companies concerned, a finding that supported the decision to acquit him of all charges.