A woman who worked at an MP’s office has been found guilty of forging the elected official’s signature on a request to end her employment contract, claiming she had been the victim of bullying.
The Bahraini teacher, who was on loan from the Education Ministry to Parliament, was sentenced to a year in prison by the High Criminal Court for forgery.
Judges ruled to suspend the sentence for three years, effective on the date a final verdict is issued, which will occur after the 34-year-old exhausts all her appeal options.
The court heard that the woman was on secondment to work at the MP’s office, which is when an employee is temporarily transferred to another organisation.
While on loan, her role was to communicate with constituents and follow up on their requests, correspond with governmental bodies and do other tasks for the MP.
The defendant, who was previously described in the Press as ‘a brilliant young author’, reportedly sent an inquiry to the bureau of MP affairs about the procedure of ending her secondment at the office.
Two days later, she reportedly sent a form to human resources (HR) from the parliamentarian’s office’s email, which appeared to be signed by him. The request was passed along to the council’s treasurer and the Civil Service Bureau and was approved.
“I was surprised when I was notified by HR that the defendant’s work relationship with us had ended,” the MP testified to the Public Prosecution. “I saw the form that was sent to end the contract, and it had my signature on it, but I never signed a form like that. I didn’t authorise anyone else to sign it on my behalf.
“I talked to the defendant, who admitted that she had sent the form. She said that it ‘wasn’t a big deal’.
“She had the office mobile phone in her possession at the time the email was sent and I asked her to return it. She stalled for a while, and when we got the phone back, we noticed that all incoming and outgoing emails had been deleted.”
The defendant claimed that she filled out the form and gave it to the MP to sign, informing him that she wanted to quit. In her Public Prosecution interview, she stated that she was ‘harassed, disturbed and bullied’ at work. “The MP disrespected me on the office’s WhatsApp group chat – he spoke to me in a way that I do not accept,” she earlier testified.
The woman’s attorney defended her by stating that she was a ‘promising and brilliant’ woman. Along with the defence notes, the lawyer submitted clippings of news stories about the novels she had published when she was still in secondary school.
She was convicted of collaborating with an unidentified individual to falsify the MP’s signature, and knowingly using the falsified document as if it was genuine.
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