The Court of Appeals, presided over by Judge Nasser Al Hayd, annulled the Criminal Court’s verdict which sentenced five citizens and a Bedoun to seven years in prison for forging salary certificates and embezzling KD 80,000 – the value of illegal loans.
Instead, the higher court fined the accused KD 3,000. Two of the accused agreed to bring unqualified loan applicants and issued them fake salary certificates in order to secure a loan.
In return, the applicants paid the two accused a certain percentage of the loan granted which, according to the Public Prosecution, amounted to KD 80,000 through four civil service employees. All of the employees involved in this racket faced charges and they admitted the crime they committed.
They also paid back the loans; thereby, negating the embezzlement and forgery charges. Meanwhile, the Court of Appeals also fined a production company KD 10,000 and ordered it to pay KD 5,001 temporary compensation to music composer Ghannam Al-Dikkan for violating copy rights of his song which was performed in 1979 in an opera house.
According to the production company, it got permission from the Ministry of Information to present Al-Dikkan’s music, and that it made attempts to seek permission from the composer himself before the concert. If the concert was cancelled, the production company would have lost 50 percent of its investment. The court also rejected the production company’s temporary compensation lawsuit against the composer for filing malicious claims against the company.
2 acquitted in appeal: The Misdemeanor Section in the Court of Appeals acquitted a citizen and his partner of dishonesty. The Public Prosecution charged the defendants with taking money handed over to them in the form of bank check amounting to KD 2.5 million although they did not do their part of the agreement.
The plaintiff said he had an agreement with the defendants to buy their company for the abovementioned sum so he handed them the check on the condition that they will cash it after transferring the company to him. However, they cashed the check even if they did not transfer the company. They even filed a lawsuit against him for issuing a dud check. Attorney Muhammad Al-Sayegh, lawyer for the defendants, pointed out in court that the accusation is malicious, indicating the case file does not include any evidence against his clients.
Case transferred: The Criminal Court ruled that it has no jurisdiction over the case of a female Egyptian teacher accused of causing the death of an elementary pupil, so the case was transferred to the Misdemeanor Court. The Public Prosecution charged the woman with beating to death the pupil, child abuse and verbal assault against the child and his mother. In the investigation carried out in April last year, investigation results and medical reports indicated that the child’s death was natural without criminal suspicion.
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