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An Ethiopian woman is standing trial for allegedly forging a marriage certificate between herself and her Saudi sweetheart that she has also used as evidence that he fathered her child.
The 34-year-old expatriate has been accused of falsifying an official document and using it with knowledge of its invalid nature. She denies the charges.
The Saudi man, who she was in a relationship with, had accused her of stealing his belongings, and she was convicted of theft at a criminal court. However, she later presented a marriage certificate to the appeals court and was released from prison.
The marriage contract appeared to have been issued by a regional Sharia Court in Ethiopia, listing the personal information and signature of the couple, and was co-signed by two local men who witnessed the nuptials, judges were told.
The document featured several stamps by the Ethiopian Consulate General, signed by an ambassador and head of mission, along with two other diplomats. It also contained a genuine apostille issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Legalisation Office, which had agreed to certify the document after the Ethiopian Mission forwarded it.
While the Ethiopian stated that she married the Saudi with a verbal agreement, the man vehemently denied this claim, and further refused to recognise her child as his offspring.
“I met the defendant some time ago, and our relationship grew stronger,” he earlier testified. “Soon, she would spend the entire time with me, whenever I was in Bahrain.
“One day, I discovered that she stole some of my property, and I reported her, after which she was tried and convicted of theft.
“I later found out she was let out of jail, after she presented a ‘forged marriage certificate’ that showed that we were married,” he claimed. “She then began a lawsuit in the Sharia Court in order to prove our marriage and to designate me as the father of her child, which I am not.”
The Ethiopian woman’s side of the story, which was recorded in appeal court documents, maintained that the two wed under a verbal marriage contract, a practice that is valid in Islam.
She stated that the matrimony was completed in the presence of witnesses in a hotel in Adliya and that the Saudi gave her a BD1,500 dowry to make the contract official.
Judges have set June 30 as the date a verdict will be issued in the case.
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