Dubai: A banker won his appeal as a court reduced his six-month imprisonment to three months for forging official papers certifying that he had completed his military service and defrauded a bank of Dh157,000.
The 30-year-old Emirati employee banker forged papers on behalf of the armed forces testifying that he had completed his military service and tampered with the dates during which he underwent military service.
Then he provided the forged papers to the bank to embezzle Dh157,000 after he claimed that he was still in the armed forces in 2015.
In June, the Dubai Court of First Instance convicted the defendant of forgery, using forged papers and swindling and jailed him for six months.
The accused appealed the primary ruling and pleaded not guilty when he appeared before the Dubai Appeal Court.
Citing grounds of leniency, presiding judge Saeed Salem Bin Sarm reduced the banker’s primary judgement to three months.
The Emirati had issued a paper on behalf of the armed forces in which he mentioned that he had completed his military service successfully. Then he falsified the dates of the period during which he underwent the military service and handed those papers to the local bank where he was employed.
He duped the bank and unlawfully took the money that he was not entitled to.
The accused was cited admitting to the interrogating prosecutor that he was in his friend’s car when he spotted the latter’s certificate which said that he had completed military service.
The defendant claimed that he took a photograph of the certificate on his phone and tampered with the details on it on his laptop, then used the forged papers to trick the bank and embezzle the money.
The appellate ruling remains subject to appeal before the Cassation Court within 28 days.
