Manama: A Qatari man has discovered that being wrongfully declared dead can create real hardships and that fixing the status is not easy.
Even though the Qatari looked perfectly healthy, his bank said that he was “officially dead” and refused to activate his account until he proved that he was “officially alive”.
His woes started when he wanted to pay for his groceries at a large shop with his credit card. However, the cashier told him that it was not working. He walked to a nearby ATM to withdraw money, but he never saw his card again.
He left the shop and headed to the bank to tell them about the card, and was shocked to learn that the card had been deactivated after he had been declared dead, Qatari daily Al Sharq reported on Tuesday.
His attempts to prove that he was truly alive, including raising his voice and shouting, failed to make the bank officers change their mind and they insisted that he needed to present an official document stating that he was not dead in order to activate his account.
The first step in the long road to prove he was alive was to obtain an official certificate proving he was dead. He contacted the Supreme Council of Health and he received his death certificate, the daily said.
He then proceeded to the Public Prosecution where he filed a case against the health council seeking evidence that he was not dead and that there had been a mix-up or an error that resulted in his “death”.
The Qatari who was not named by the daily eventually hired a lawyer to help him with the dilemma.
“This case is rather strange and highly unusual,” Falah Al Mutairi, the lawyer, told Al Sharq. “I believe there was a misprint or a mix-up in entering the data. I do not see any other reasons for the unfortunate confusion. We will now prove that my client is very much alive and we will make sure he gets his life back through the reactivation of his data and accounts and the cancellation of the documents stating that he was dead,” the lawyer said.
