Ex-consultant charged with stealing government files

Manama: Salah Al Bandar, former government consultant who alleged the existence of a secret plot to rig the forthcoming elections, was yesterday charged with unlawful expropriation of government documents and theft.

"The public prosecutor has transferred the case of Salah Al Bandar to the high criminal court on the charges of using his professional position to illegally take documents that belonged to the state and commit theft," public prosecutor Osama Al Ofi said in a statement sent to Gulf News.

The two charges were levelled at the end of a public prosecution investigation, according to the statement.

"One of the employees at the organisation where Al Bandar was working said that the accused used his position to expropriate some documents, and the officer who searched his house said that he found papers that belonged to the same organisation," said Al Ofi.

Documents

The documents include missives on the appointment of officers, a memorandum on establishing and organising an agency for administrative follow-up and monitoring and a report on follow-ups with ministries on their programmes and projects related to government work from January to May this year. Two cheques, non-related to work, were also found at his home, the statement said.

Al Bandar, a British citizen of Sudanese origin, released a 220-page report claiming that senior officials, journalists, rights activists and security officials were involved in "a secret plot to disenfranchise Shiites and remove them from all circles of influence in government departments".

Al Bandar, considered by some as a whistleblower, but by others as a traitor and a spy, was expelled on September 13 in a move that sparked questions about the reasons for his deportation in the face of grave accusations.

Released

But Al Ofi yesterday said that Al Bandar was released at the beginning of the investigations because the authorities "did not find the documents said to contain information that could undermine the higher interests of the nation and inflame dissension between the people of the country."