The High Appeals Court has rejected the appeal of a tourism employee accused of forgery, confirming the one year’s imprisonment he had received. The defendant has been convicted of forging a hotel classification certificate, granting it a 4-star rating.
The Public Prosecution accused the employee of committing forgery in an official electronic record, specifically the inspection report of a hotel, attributed to the Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority (BTEA) under the Ministry of Tourism.
He allegedly falsified the report to indicate that the hotel had met the standards stipulated in the decision on the classification of hotels, hotel apartments, and food and beverage services, when in reality, it had not.
The incident came to light when the National Audit Office received a request to audit the hotel. An investigative audit team was formed, which discovered that the hotel did not meet the classification standards according to Decision No. 4 of 2015 concerning the classification of hotels and hotel apartments. This contradicted the inspection report prepared by the accused, which stated that the hotel had passed the classification.
The accused later admitted to the report’s inaccuracy. Furthermore, an inspector from the BTEA confirmed the incident after inspecting the hotel to verify the violations mentioned in the report prepared by the accused.
The investigation revealed that the accused had documented 16 observations containing incorrect information about the inspection findings, including those related to the general cleanliness of the hotel, service areas, restaurants, and certain requirements for the hotel’s 4-star rating.
