With reporting from Riham Sheble
A Syrian woman convicted of trying to bribe a Civil Defense officer in Qatar is expected to be back in front of a judge in the coming weeks when the Court of Appeal resumes after its summer break.
The woman was arrested in April 2013 at a petrol station near TV Roundabout, where she was caught giving the government official QR10,000 (US$2,746) in return for a commercial building safety certificate.
Her lawyer argued that the authorities entrapped the woman and encouraged her to offer the payment.
Even if that’s true, the woman admitted after she was arrested that she attempted to use her personal connection with a Civil Defense official to cut through bureaucracy and bend the rules.
The attempt comes amid ongoing government efforts to make buildings in this country safer following the deadly 2012 Villaggio Mall fire, in which 19 people, mostly children, died in an improperly licensed daycare center.
Following the fire, Qatar passed a law that among other things, requires new buildings to be inspected by Civil Defense in order to receive an occupancy certificate.
The convicted woman is not currently in custody, but faces a year in prison and deportation to her home country – as well as the forfeiture of the QR10,000 – if the original verdict is upheld on appeal.
Sting operation
According to court documents, the Syrian woman arrived in Qatar roughly a year before her arrest and was working for a local company that conducted feasibility studies for businesses and “facilitated transactions.”
Early in 2013, she went to a Civil Defense service center to submit paperwork on behalf of a client and met the official who she would later be accused of attempting to bribe.
Weeks later, she called the officer looking for help to obtain another safety certificate.
In a statement given at the police station following her arrest, the woman said she phoned the official to get help in obtaining approvals for a building that had not met the necessary conditions.
According to a court record of the statement given to police, the woman asked the officer if he could finalize approval of the building’s safety certificate regardless. She said he agreed, and asked for QR10,000 in return.
In court, the Civil Defense officer – a second lieutenant – told a different story.
He said that no monetary amount was discussed and after being contacted by the woman, he conveyed details of the conversation to his superiors. He said he was then instructed to complete the transaction so the woman could be arrested.
A sting operation was set up on April 25, 2013, when the woman was instructed to meet the Civil Defense officer at roughly 9:30am at the Yarmouk petrol station in Wadi al-Sail.
Investigators who were covertly monitoring the transaction testified in court that they observed the woman leave her car and walk a short distance to the Civil Defense officer’s vehicle. Less than five minutes later, investigators approached the vehicle containing the two individuals.
The woman was holding a Civil Defense certificate in her hand and QR10,000 was seen inside the vehicle, between the driver and front passenger seat.
She was later convicted on charges of offering a bribe to encourage a civil servant to violate the duties of his job.
At the police station, she insisted that she did not offer to bribe the officer and that he was the one who asked for money.
Language center
Adding another dimension to the case is an aborted business relationship between the convicted woman and the Civil Defense officer.
Several days after their initial meeting at the Civil Defense office, the two ran into each other at City Center Mall and then sat down at a coffee shop with a friend of the officer, according to the woman’s statement to police.
The conversation turned to starting an Arabic language training center, and the trio discussed forming a partnership to launch the business.
The woman told police that she and the Civil Defense officer spoke on the phone and met in person two or three times after that initial coffee shop meeting to discuss budgets and profit-sharing formulas.
Eventually, the Civil Defense officer told the woman that he and his friend were bailing on the initiative, but that she should not hesitate to contact him if she ever needed any assistance with transactions or paperwork.
Again, the officer’s account of the details differed. Under cross-examination, he said that he ended discussions about the business partnership only after she had offered him a bribe.
In court, the woman’s defense lawyer argued that the authorities had no right to incite the woman into committing a crime. The incident, he said, was unproven because of the “maliciousness of the accusation.”
His request for an acquittal was rejected by the court, which convicted the woman based on her confession at the police station and determined there was no evidence to support her claim that it was the Civil Defense officer who asked for the bribe.
When contacted by Doha News, representatives of the Syrian Embassy said they were not aware of the case, but were looking into it.
Thoughts?
This is pretty old news… And stories like this are reported daily in the Arabic papers…
An Arab expat offered a bribe… Shocking…
Or a Qatari official not being held responsible… Even more shocking.
responsible for what?? she offered the bribe.. he reported it…
Just another hater bro ..
Says he. Due to the lack of enforcement of other rules/laws FOR, and the lack of responsibility taking, BY locals this story could be either way and I wouldn’t be surprised if this official was a known “fixer”.
“could” is the keyword, but he’s a Qatari so I guess any negative assumption is acceptable without questioning.
Like I said, the lack of accountability here by and for locals leaves the scenario open to question.
There is a lack of accountability for expats too, a lot of fraud, theft, and other forms of corruption go unpunished and those responsible were expats. In fact the most serious crimes in most Qatar organizations have been committed by expats, yet how many have been made accountable for it?
Deleting most of this thread because it’s hateful and irrelevant.
Using that kind of logic, we could assume that the USA has had some role in supporting ISIS as they had certainly supported other fundamentalists in the past, Bin Ladin, Iranians, etc. Hence, there is a possibility the US had some role in the growth of ISIS.
Your logic doesn’t follow.
LOL, nor does yours dude, that’s my point.
My logic is sound.
or 911 was plotted by jews… no need to look at facts… we can just say anything… it’s the internet right !!
And you guys can’t ever hide your hatred or jealousy of the jews.
Obviously you’re the one who can’t hide your hatred or jealousy of the Qataris.
Other than money what else do you have? Nada
LOOL! The more you comment the dumber you sound. I am not wasting my time here.
Masalama
god my head hurts! are you really this dumb …
God my head hurts are you really so daft?
Or an expat speculating foolishly on the circumstances surrounding an event with very little evidence…not very shocking.
i dont get why there is so many upvotes for this, you just assumed the Qatari has done something wrong, why? what evidence do you have. im not Qatari FYI but when there is no mention of the Qatari doing anything wrong!
Qatari’s and their institutions are protected within their own judicial system if they can get away with it.
I was falsely accused of raping a 9 year old student, jailed and eventually found not guilty. I had the full support of my school and peers yet i was still deported from the country. I subsequently proceeded civil actions after leaving, endured 2 years of waiting for an unsuccesful result for damages caused (despite winning all my previous court cases). I would like to see the result of an expat falsely accusing a Qatari of raping their child. Im sure it would be a different result.
Dorje’s treatment is another great example. A man was wrongfully terminated from Qatar Foundation resulting in his imprisonment and deportation.
There is the Villagio fire where a Qatari Minister was found guilty yet still has his Belgium Ambassador duties.
The Asian Cup ticket fiasco where organisers straight out lied about shutting the gates before kickoff and pre filling the stadium with buses of Labourers.
Past history tells me there is much information missing from the above story. Qatar’s judicial system is an absolute joke!
Good to see corrupt people being arrested and not just accepting it as normal business practise in the arab world.
However it seems they have a strange convoluted relationship and it needed further investigation of both parties. Maybe it was revenge by the official to entrap her or maybe she believed a small bribe would help smooth the way. Without knowing the exact case of seeing the evidence in detail it is hard to comment accurately.