An expat has been sentenced to a year in jail for stealing his employer’s Ooredoo reward points, the Peninsula reports.

The man, whose name and nationality have not been identified, is accused of using his sponsor’s personal PIN to transfer the Nojoom points to his own account.

In his defense, the man told the court that he’d taken the points after his employer had deducted an undisclosed amount of money from his salary.

He will be deported once he has served his sentence.

Qatar’s criminal court heard the case, in which the convicted man’s employer also claimed for $9,065 (QR33,000) in damages from a car accident that he said his employee had been responsible for. 

Penal code

The Peninsula’s sister paper, Arabic daily Al Sharq, reports however that the court decided both crimes would only be treated as a single issue.

It appears that the man was given the lightest sentence allowed under the law.

He was prosecuted under Articles 341 and 373 of the Penal code. Article 373 is one of Qatar’s Computer laws. It states that anyone accessing another person’s processing system to destroy, modify or transfer data will be sentenced to not less than one year in jail, up to a maximum of 3 years.  

Article 373 also provides for a fine to be imposed, but it seems the court decided not to include this in the man’s sentence in this case.

Article 341 says that anyone who steals money from an employer must have a sentence of no more than 7 years.

Thoughts?

Credit: Photo by Shabina S. Khatri