No jail for man who exit Bahrain illegally

Manama : The High Criminal Court has cancelled the jail term of a man accused of leaving Bahrain illegally, slapping him with BD400 fine instead after he was given four months imprisonment. 

Aged 51, the defendant stated that he had left Bahrain upon the request of his brother-in-law, who is an ex-Colonel in the Intelligence. He told prosecutors that the latter helped him to enter Qatar, where he stayed for almost one year. 

He returned after his family informed him of the importance to react to police’s calls to appear before prosecutors as there was a case filed against him. The ex-Colonel himself is facing several cases, ranging between possessing arms and fraud. He is currently behind bars after he was held guilty in some of the cases. 

“In 2014, my nephew came to me and passed a massage from my brother-in-law that I should leave Bahrain at the earliest. I packed my luggage and he (the ex-Colonel) gave me BD5,000. I was asked to lie down on the back seat. He (the ex-Colonel) managed to pass all the checkpoints on King Fahd Causeway, and we eventually reached Qatar,” the defendant told prosecutors earlier. 

“I stayed there for 315 days, but I rushed back to Bahrain after my family told me that an Interpol arrest warrant was issued against me,” he added. 

The defendant was charged with leaving Bahrain on November 9 illegally. The ex-Colonel was earlier given four months behind bars also for smuggling him.