Businessman jailed for using employee’s passport

The High Criminal Court has sentenced an Arab businessman to five years behind bars for trying to use one of his employee’s passports to flee the country. He was abetted in the crime by an Asian man, also serving in his company, who was tried and sentenced to five years in prison too.

The defendant is said to have attempted to use the passport without the approval of his employee and justified it because his name was on the ban list, alleging that he needed to go home urgently to see his sick father.

Customs officers were already put on alert by the Director-General of Anti-Corruption and Economic and Electronic Security, which received a tipoff on the man’s plan and he booked a flight under a different person’s name.

He was arrested before boarding the plane. “My father was seriously sick and I needed to go and be beside him. I could only do it through this way,” he said, adding that “I was arrested while I was boarding the plane”.