21 hours ago
Family faces trial for Tamkeen fraud
A mother, her four sons and five others are facing trial over claims they took more than BD230,000 from Tamkeen and the Social Insurance Organisation by filing fake job contracts and pay slips. Six of the eleven accused appeared before the First High Criminal Court.
The second defendant, who is in custody, was brought in. His brother, the first defendant, was not produced from prison.
Three others failed to attend and will be summoned again. The remaining five, all out on bail, stood before the court and denied the charges.
Defence lawyers, including Reem Al Mahhari and Zahra Hussain, asked for copies of the case file and time to reply.
The court set 8 July to have the first defendant brought from prison and for fresh summons to be issued to the three absentees.
The defence will also be expected to respond at the same hearing.
Prosecutors said the first and second defendants submitted forged contracts through online portals run by Tamkeen and the Social Insurance Organisation.
The forms claimed they had hired a number of staff to companies that did not exist, complete with invented roles and salaries.
Those papers were then used to add and remove names from the insurance system and to make claims for one-off retirement payouts and pensions.
The same details were later used in wage support requests to Tamkeen.
