A Syrian expatriate has been sentenced to five years in jail for bringing in counterfeit currency from his country and trying to use it in Qatar’s shops in November 2007. His two brothers and an Indian shopkeeper were also convicted for not informing the police and destroying evidence.
According to the charge-sheet, the main accused, a Syrian, paid with two fake QR500 notes after buying items from a shopping mall on two different occasions.
The Indian shopkeeper, who failed to notify the police, was fined QR3,000 but the penalty was suspended because he had a clean record.
After the shopkeeper detected the fraud, a brother of the main accused approached him to solve the matter in a “friendly way”, the court was told.
A shop assistant testified saying that he confronted the main accused with the counterfeit bills when he came to his shop the third time and referred the matter to his boss, the Indian shopkeeper. “He gave my boss two authentic notes and tore the fake ones in front of us. My boss agreed not to inform the police,” the witness said. Another Asian shop assistant corroborated his statement.
The lawyer of the Indian claimed that his client agreed “to solve the matter peacefully” after consulting with his managers.
Presiding judge Mamon Hamour dismissed the argument saying that
obeying the boss did not extend to criminal acts. <--- WHAT?! So if I tell my employee to kill someone, it's not a criminal act!
GT
The shop keeper shouldn't have been let go because he had a clean record. I feel like Qatar's legal system is becoming too friendly. It focuses on irrelevant things!
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