A man accused of forgery has been acquitted owing to a lack of evidence.
The defendant was on trial at the Lower Criminal Court where he was accused of committing forgery in an attempt to extort BD15,000 from a woman.
The alleged victim claimed that the defendant ‘intentionally misled’ her by filling out a document with false information with an intent to pass it off as a valid one.
According to court documents, the woman wanted a loan of BD3,000 from the defendant and gave him a signed paper to validate the transaction. However, she did not specify the amount in the loan agreement.
She claimed that she was later shocked to discover that the defendant had filled out the document stating that she had borrowed BD15,000 from him.
She filed a case at the Civil Court accusing the man of committing forgery and extorting money.
The court, however, dismissed her claim and ruled in the man’s favour.
The woman filed another case at the Lower Criminal Court alleging that the defendant intentionally misused the document without her knowledge.
Defendant’s lawyer Ali Al Shaikh denied the charges against his client and claimed that the case lacked evidence as the document’s format did not indicate any foul play.
“The evidence must not contain any doubt or be open to interpretation,” said Mr Al Shaikh.
“Usually in forged documents, there are spaces between lines, however, that’s not the case in this paper. On top of that, this is not a formal contract.
“What is important in such cases are the signature and fingerprint, both of which are present in the document submitted by the woman.
“There is no evidence that could be supported by reasoning, or any indication of forgery and the accusation is based on mere assumption, suspicion and guesswork.”
The court examined the case taking notes of the facts and circumstances surrounding it. Judges were also reportedly sceptical about the alleged victim’s testimony.
Speaking before the judges, the accused denied all charges against him.
He claimed that he had received a blank signed document from the woman and demanded BD15,000 as she owed him the amount.
He denied any acts of forgery.
“I feared that she would flee the country as I learned that she was travelling to Europe,” he said, adding that he filed the papers for the amount in order to collect his debt.
The court stated that not only did the victim admit to handing the accused a blank document, but also there was no evidence to determine the amount that was agreed upon between them, whether it was BD3,000 or BD15,000.
The court hence acquitted the defendant of all charges. The age or nationalities of both the defendant and the complainant were not revealed.
&uuid=(email))