Manama: A Qatar high school student has been sentenced to one year in prison after he hacked into a classmate's email account and used it to send porn material.
Police arrested the hacker following a complaint by the classmate about the misuse of his account to disseminate pornographic pictures and harass contacts. The victim said that he could not access his account after the hacker changed the password.
The matter was referred to the cyber crime cell the hacker was eventually identified, arrested and referred for legal action.
The court ruled that the teenager would have to spend one year in jail and to pay a 10,000 Qatari riyals fine.
Details of the case were revealed by Ebrahim Abdullah Al Kubaisi, Qatar's attorney-general, at a news conference in Doha on Saturday, Qatar News Agency (QNA) reported.
Al Kubaisi said that Wi-Fi network users should protect themselves by ensuring they had passwords.
"The most dangerous aspect of this public network is that it is, by definition, open to access by everyone, including those with malicious intent," he said.
Saud Abdullah Al Shafi, head of West Capital Police, said the public prosecution and Qatar Telecom (Qtel) were working closely to detect and combat cyber crimes.
"There are many cases of cyber crimes pending at the courts, but their number will decrease by raising self-awareness among internet users," he said at the press conference.
People should be fully aware of the legal aspects of cyber abuses and should appreciate that jokes among teenagers can ultimately wade into police issues and court sentences, prosecution officials warned.
A cyber crime centre was set up in Doha last December as one of the most important facilities for preventing cyber crimes at a regional level.
The centre aims to crack down on offenders who use sophisticated electronic devises to engage in criminal activities, QNA said.
