A manager jailed for exploiting five janitors’ inability to speak English and submitting resignation letters on their behalf has lost an appeal against his conviction.
In April, the Kenyan defendant was sentenced to five years in prison and fined BD5,000 by the High Criminal Court for forgery. He later objected to the ruling, arguing that it had been issued in absentia.
After appearing in court to present his defence, his sentence was reduced in May to three years in prison and a BD3,000 fine.
The defendant subsequently appealed the verdict before the Supreme Criminal Appeals Court, which upheld the conviction and rejected his plea.
According to court records, five Bahraini cleaners lost their jobs after the supervisor prepared resignation letters in their names and affixed their electronic signatures without their knowledge or consent.
None of the victims were reinstated to their positions, the court heard.
The 41-year-old defendant worked for a company contracted by the Labour Ministry to provide cleaning services at the ministry’s buildings, where the janitors were assigned.
The Kenyan was convicted of collaborating with a well-intentioned public employee to enter false information into a governmental body’s digital system by submitting the forged resignation letters as genuine. He was also found guilty of using the documents despite knowing they were fraudulent.
The victims told investigators that the defendant asked them to digitally sign an English-language document they could not read, without informing them that it was a resignation letter.
One of the victims, aged 27, told the Public Prosecution that on December 1, 2024, he 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,” he testified.
“When we arrived, we were called individually into the Kenyan defendant’s office. He told us we would receive a WhatsApp message and asked us to provide him with the code contained in it.
“As I cannot speak English, and there was no translator, I did not understand the contents of the message, but I gave him the code.
“Later, I discovered that I had signed a resignation letter under my own name, and that I quit my job without knowing about it or agreeing to it. It turned out that the defendant had used the code to apply my electronic signature to the document.
“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 the firm.”
The four other complainants, aged 24, 25, 26 and 41, gave similar accounts. One victim said the defendant had told him the message related to employee timesheets.
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