A Bahraini man, who was sentenced to five years behind bars for attempting to re-enter the country using a passport that had been tampered with, has lodged an objection against his conviction at court.
Last month, the 29-year-old defendant was convicted alongside four other men, who were found guilty of being part of a racket to illegally renew the passports of fugitive Bahraini citizens residing abroad.
According to the High Criminal Court’s ruling, the four Bahrainis forged a stamp extending the validity of the objecting defendant’s passport, as he had been out of the country for several years.
They were charged with replicating signatures and stamps attributed to the Nationality, Passports and Residence Affairs (NPRA) three times, extending the passport’s life to 2019, 2023 and 2027.
In Public Prosecution hearings, the objector admitted to aiding and abetting his co-conspirators by providing them with his passport in which they placed the replicated stamps.
He further admitted to using the passport while being aware of the fact the stamps in it were not genuine.
Despite being in custody, he did not appear at the initial trial for an unknown reason and was not present when the court found him guilty, but he has now returned to challenge the ruling.
Judges have adjourned the trial to February 10, where the objector will be granted a chance to address the court and attempt to convince judges to acquit him.
The GDN earlier reported that the 29-year-old has been wanted since 2015 on accusations of illegal gathering and rioting.
According to the January verdict, the man had covertly fled the country via the Saudi border, and settled in Iraq, but was immediately arrested by authorities once he landed at the airport and attempted to re-enter the country.
The objector is the only defendant currently in Bahrain. The other four co-defendants aged between 36 and 67 – two clerics, an imam and a driver – were found guilty of forgery in absentia as they are all abroad.
Investigators allege that the four men have previously executed similar schemes to fraudulently obtain new personal documents from the NPRA, though it was not specified whether they were ever found guilty in relation to this alleged racket.
One of the defendants is a senior cleric who resides in an Arab country, while two others were sentenced to life in prison on various charges related to national security.
Images of the counterfeit stamps were attached in court documents and the GDN earlier reported that the stamps featured obvious misspellings and blatant factual errors.
The clear spelling mistakes in the English-language part of the stamps include ‘Diroctor of Passports’ instead of ‘director’, and ‘Republic of Bahrain’ instead of ‘Kingdom of Bahrain’.
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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