Dubai Court rejects forgery appeal

DUBAI // The prosecution lost its appeal against the acquittal of a businessman accused of forging official letters in order to receive his deceased father’s military pension.

Prosecutors told the Dubai Criminal Court that in 2010, Emirati MA, assisted by an unknown man, forged two official documents, which he signed, testifying that his father was still alive. He then submitted the documents to the Retired Militants Society and obtained the father’s salary, which legally belonged to him and his six siblings.

Prosecutors charged MA him with forgery, use of forged documents and with illegally obtaining money. The Dubai Criminal Court acquitted him in May, but the prosecution appealed.

They said MA’s father died in 2010, the same year MA forged the documents and received his father’s Dh10,387 monthly salary.

MA’s brother TA, 48, testified that the family discovered the incident when another brother visited the Ministry of Finance in Abu Dhabi and was told the father’s salary was still being disbursed.

“We then came to know that MA renewed the papers after my father’s death and had been taking the salary to himself ever since,” TA said.

An employee at the Retired Militants Society testified in records that MA presented all the official documents needed to renew his father’s application, and said that his father was in ill health and unable to renew the application himself. MA’s acquittal still stands.