Court Reduces Sentence in Electronic Forgery

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The First Major Criminal Court reduced the sentence of a 41-year-old Kenyan national convicted in an electronic forgery and labour exploitation case, lowering his punishment to three years in prison and a 3,000 Bahraini dinar fine. The court also ordered his deportation after serving the sentence and confiscation of forged documents.

The revised ruling replaces an earlier judgment that imposed five years’ imprisonment and a 5,000-dinar fine.

The case centres on a fraudulent scheme in which the defendant, a supervisor at a private security company, allegedly exploited the limited English proficiency of five Bahraini workers to manipulate electronic verification codes sent to their mobile phones.

According to case details, the defendant misled the workers into believing that one-time SMS verification codes were required for administrative reassignment to new job locations. In reality, the codes were used to authorise electronic resignation submissions without their consent.

The Public Prosecution charged the defendant with unlawfully using electronic signatures in December 2024, in coordination with another employee, to enter false data into the Ministry of Labour’s electronic system. This included submitting forged resignation letters attributed to the victims.

He was also found to have forged private documents in the form of resignation letters and authenticated them using the victims’ verification codes before submitting them to the relevant authority.