FIVE people are in the dock for allegedly being part of a gang that smuggled SIM cards into Bahrain’s main prison.
Three Bahrainis, a Bangladeshi and a Vietnamese appeared at the High Criminal Court on Tuesday and denied fraud, forgery and smuggling the phone cards into Jaw Prison.
The expatriate defendants reportedly obtained the SIM cards fraudulently from a mobile shop they worked for in Juffair, before giving them to their Bahraini co-defendants to smuggle into prison.
However, a detective, who was tipped off by confidential informants, said it was not clear how the accused managed to sneak the phone cards to inmates.
“The Bahraini defendants took the illegally obtained SIM cards and smuggled them into prison,” the 34-year-old said in his statement to prosecutors.
“They used the help of other people, who are not known to authorities.
“The SIM cards landed in the hands of several inmates, including the brother of a Bahraini defendant, aged 64.”
He added that the expatriate defendants used their own fingerprints to obtain the SIM cards after using the CPRs stolen from several people.
The Bangladeshi defendant admitted to carrying out offences at his work place but denied knowing that the SIM cards were going to be smuggled into prison.
“I used my own fingerprints to cut down on some of the procedures for customers in an attempt to quickly give them SIM cards,” the 33-year-old told prosecutors.
The trial has been adjourned until Tuesday for review.
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