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Five janitors lost their jobs after their supervisor submitted resignation letters in their names and affixed their electronic signatures without consent.
In April, the manager was sentenced to five years in prison and fined BD5,000 by the High Criminal Court for forgery. He has since lodged an objection, stating that the ruling was issued in absentia.
The court heard that a ministry had contracted the company where the defendant worked to provide cleaning services for its buildings, to which the five Bahraini janitors were assigned.
The 41-year-old Kenyan manager was found guilty of using digital signatures he had obtained from the men through deception, which were then used on official company documents.
He was convicted of collaborating with a well-intentioned public employee to enter false information into a government digital system by submitting the fabricated resignation letters as genuine.
He was further found guilty of using the letters with the signatures, which were obtained through deception, while knowing that the documents were fraudulent.
The victims claimed that the defendant had asked them to digitally sign a letter written in English, which they could not read, without informing them that it was a resignation letter.
All five Bahraini men, aged between 24 and 41, are now jobless.
“I worked as a janitor with the security company at the ministry’s premises,” a 27-year-old victim told the Public Prosecution.
“On December 1, 2024, I was informed that the company’s cleaning contract with the ministry had ended.
“One of the managers, a Bahraini, asked us to come to the firm’s headquarters to change our assignment.
“When we got there, we were asked to enter the Kenyan defendant’s office individually. He told us that we would receive a message on WhatsApp, and asked us to tell him the code in the message.
“Since I can’t speak English, and there was no translator, I didn’t know the contents of the message, but I gave him the code.
“Later, I discovered that I’d signed a resignation letter under my own name, and that I had quit my job without knowing about it or agreeing to it. It turned out the defendant used the code to place my electronic signature on the letter.
“I was no longer employed at the company, and I wasn’t able to get all of the outstanding payments I was entitled to after leaving.”
Four other Bahrainis, aged 24, 25, 26 and 41, gave similar testimony. One victim recounted that the manager told him the message was related to their time sheets.
Since the suspect was not present at the initial trial, he lodged an objection. He was granted a chance to defend himself, and was not arrested.
The witnesses were called before the judge and were cross-examined by both the defence and the prosecution in several lengthy hearings.
Meanwhile, the defendant’s attorney stated that his client was not responsible for the resignations.
Judges have set May 24 as the date to issue a new verdict in the case.
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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