An ex-convict has been sentenced to five years in prison for stealing a pick-up truck at knifepoint and using the stolen vehicle to commit several crimes after consuming six cans of an alcoholic beverage.
The Bahraini was on trial at the High Criminal Court for threatening an Indian expatriate who was sitting in his friend’s car, ejecting him out of the vehicle and driving away.
The sentence comes in addition to a six-month jail term the defendant had recently received for deliberately crashing the same stolen vehicle into other cars.
He was also fined BD50 for public intoxication.
The 26-year-old was found guilty of assaulting the man, robbing him of his wallet and phone, and fleeing the scene in the stolen vehicle.
The court heard that the vehicle’s Indian owner had gone into a currency exchange bureau, leaving his 41-year-old friend sitting in the passenger seat while he ran the errand.
The accused, from Muharraq, suddenly approached the vehicle, brandished a knife at the friend and ordered him to get out.
He poked the victim’s shoulder with the blade, forcing him out, before driving off in the pick-up.
The victim later identified the defendant in a police line-up and testified that he sustained only a superficial injury in the October incident.
The knife used in the attack was found in the defendant’s pouch.
Meanwhile, the pick-up’s owner recounted leaving the exchange shop and not seeing his car outside.
The suspect claimed he was not aware of, or in control of, his actions because he was on a prescription medication for epilepsy, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
He said he was a long-term psychiatric patient, and admitted to being intoxicated at the time, having drunk six cans from a 10-can pack of beverage.
However, judges rejected the defence and ordered him jail.
The defendant’s criminal record showed that he was charged in two more criminal cases, in which the stolen pick-up was used.
He had previously been convicted in theft-related offences and was sentenced to six months in prison by the High Criminal Court for robbing a person on the street.
Another case, in which he was charged with committing a hit and run on Hidd Road while under the influence, remains under investigation by the Public Prosecution.
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