Ministry employees jailed for forging health certificates
Sting operation traps driver and cleaner who took Dh2,500 as bribe
Dubai: A Health Ministry cleaner and a driver have been jailed for two years after a court convicted them of unlawfully gaining Dh2,500 through processing forged health certificates.
The Dubai Court of First Instance found the Indian convicts, 30-year-old cleaner, N.K. and 38-year-old driver, A.K., guilty of unlawfully gaining money by issuing forged health certificates.
Prosecutors charged N.K., who works at the Health Ministry, with forging a health certificate and handing it to a police informant, who posed as a person suffering from an infectious disease during a sting operation. A.K., was charged with conspiring with N.K.
The defendants pleaded not guilty and rejected the charges in court.
"I am not guilty. I don't know the other suspect and I haven't seen him before," said N.K. before Presiding Judge Hamad Abdul Latif Abdul Jawad.
The Public Prosecution charged the cleaner with abusing his job at the ministry and accepting Dh2,500 (police money used during the sting operation) as a bribe. A.K. was charged with aiding and abetting N.K. The jury also fined N.K. Dh2,500. The judge said the convicts will be deported after serving their punishments. The primary judgment is still subject to appeal within 15 days.
An Emirati first corporal testified that N.K. was processing forged health reports certifying that individuals were healthy and without transmittable diseases.
"We obtained prosecutors' permission to record the dialogue between the defendants and our informant, who posed as someone suffering from an infectious disease and paid Dh2,500 to acquire a healthy-person certificate. The deed was completed in Al Baraha and the convicts were detained," said the first corporal.
