Court acquits 49-year-old man in fake currency case
A49-year-old Gulf national accused of counterfeiting US dollar notes has been acquitted due to lack of proof. The Saudi man was sent to police custody after trying to purchase a watch worth BD455 from a watch shop in a local mall by settling the bill with counterfeit US currency.
He reportedly told the salesman in the shop that he didn’t have Bahraini dinars, offering to pay via dollars.
But the bills he handed over in exchange to the watch were discovered to be forged when the salesman went to an exchange company near the shop to convert it to Bahraini dinars.
The defendant was caught later in the mall by the salesman, but he claimed that he had received the US dollars from a bank in Saudi Arabia. He gave the watch back, but fled the scene when the salesman requested for his ID.
He was later captured at King Fahd Causeway. He told prosecutors that he was en route to his country to bring a receipt that proves he had received $21,000 from the bank in Saudi.
“I used the same money in Saudi and Oman as well as I transferred part of it to my son who is living in USA,” he had said in his statement to prosecutors. The notes were examined and it was confirmed that money was forged.
The High Criminal Court, however, said in its verdict that it acknowledged that the defendant handed the salesman fake money, but that doesn’t mean that he was aware of it.
“The court is reassured by the defendant’s statements and he was going to be held guilty if he was aware that he was in possession of fake money,” the court verdict read.
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