The court of first instance sentenced him to 5 years in prison
The Court of Appeal acquitted a businessman of forging a bank account
Wrote – Nasha’at Amin: The Court of Appeal acquitted a businessman who had been sentenced by the Court of first instance to five years in prison in a case involving the forgery of a bank statement of account purportedly issued by one of the banks.
The Public Prosecution had referred the businessman and three residents to the Criminal Court, attributing to them the charge of forgery in an official document, which was a bank statement allegedly issued by one of the banks. The charges stated that one of the accused fabricated a bank statement mimicking authentic documents, removed deductions from the account of the first defendant, and appended it with signatures and seals falsely attributed to the bank. This was done to enable the accused to obtain a facilitation from one of the financing companies.
Investigations indicated that the accused managed to seize funds by submitting forged documents to the financing company, thereby deceiving the company and obtaining the facilitation to finance the purchase of a Land Cruiser vehicle.
The Public Prosecution concluded the investigation by referring the case to the Criminal Court, which had given a default judgement sentencing the citizen and all the accused to five years imprisonment each.
The businessman opposed a motion for the default judgement given against him, but the court ruled the opposition as if it was never filed.
The defendant then appealed the judgement by his legal agent, Attorney Mana Nasser Jashan, who based the appeal on several grounds, including errors in the application of the law, deficiencies in reasoning, and corruption in the evidence presented. Such Attorney requested the annulment of the appealed judgement and a new judgement acquitting the defendant of the attributed charges for various reasons, including the lack of any evidence pointing to his guilt and his lack of connection to the forged certificate purportedly issued by his company, where the first defendant works.
The appellant’s defence requested that the document allegedly issued by his company be referred to the forensic laboratory to verify its forgery and fabrication by the second defendant for use alongside the forged bank statement of account. The Court of Appeal decided to annul the appealed judgement and acquit the citizen of the charges attributed to him.