Cairo: A Bahraini appeals court has commuted an earlier three-jail sentence handed down to a defendant charged with forging a coronavirus-detecting test to one year, local media reported.
The defendant, a sweets trader, was arrested last March for illegally attempting to enter Saudi Arabia via the King Fahd Causeway linking the kingdom to Bahrain to peddle his merchandise there.
Travellers using the facility are required to undergo PCR testing 72 hours before entry. Failing to do the test in time, the man illegally combined an earlier negative test he had undergone with a recent one belonging to a friend and photocopied them to appear as if they were one. But his attempt was exposed via the QR code, which proved that the document was forged.
In investigations, he admitted to his illegal bid and was referred to a lower court that sentenced him to three years in jail, later reduced to one year. The 25km-long causeway was shut in March last year as part of a string of measures to fight the spread of the novel coronavirus. The facility was reopened four months later.
The bridge was inaugurated in 1986 and has since been vital for movement between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, two members of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council.
