Bahrain court hands Arab defendant suspended sentence in ID card case

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

The Supreme Criminal Court has sentenced an Arab woman, married to a Bahraini man, to a suspended one-year jail sentence for illegally using her identification card. The woman gave her ID to ambulance personnel to assist another woman in labour, which the prosecution deemed an unauthorised use.

The woman's lawyer argued that humanitarian considerations drove her actions, as she witnessed the childbirth process and witnessed blood loss. The public prosecution charged both defendants in February 2020 for maliciously using a valid identification card in the name of the first defendant and benefiting from it without justification.

The second defendant was charged with complicity and assistance to the first defendant in using her card. The first defendant received a one-year sentence, while the second woman received a suspended sentence due to her clean criminal history and the humanitarian purpose of saving the first defendant's life.