Repeat offender serving 6 years loses appeal

The Supreme Criminal Court of Appeal yesterday turned down the appeal of a Bahraini man accused of committing multiple offences in a day. The court confirmed the sixyear jail term and a BD50 fine awarded to him by the High Criminal Court on charges of impersonation, robbery and forgery.

Case files say the suspect stole a student’s wallet from his car parked in a private university in Salmabad in the Northern Governorate.  The victim’s identity card was then used to rent a car and purchase an iPhone 7 from one of the telecommunications providers in the Kingdom.  He later confessed selling the phone for BD300 to a local mobile phones shop and stealing a salesman’s mobile phone, left unattended on the counter, on his way out.

Police launched the investigation after receiving a complaint from the salesman. CCTV footages retrieved from the shop clearly showed the suspect snatching the phone on his way out. The investigation led to identifying the owner of the identity card used for renting the car and purchasing the phone. The first victim denied knowing about the incident and told police that his ID card was stolen from his car.

Additionally, the victim identified the suspect in the CCTV footage, stating that he had seen him suspiciously walking around his car on the day of the theft. Further investigations led to the arrest of the suspect. Public Prosecution accused the suspect of committing eight crimes in a day. The suspect was charged with stealing the first victim’s wallet, impersonating and forging his signature to rent and use a car without the victim’s consent.

The suspect was also accused of impersonating the first victim and forging his signature in the application documents of the telecommunications provider and providing false data to it, purchasing the mobile phone by using fraudulent methods and stealing the mobile phone of the second victim.