Trio jailed for forging sick leave notes for hundreds of people
abu dhabi — A nurse and two other men accused of forging hundreds of sick leave certificates for various people in return for money have been sentenced to jail.
The Abu Dhabi Criminal Court of First Instance sentenced the Filipino nurse and an Emirati man to five years each in jail after they were found guilty of forging official documents. The Emirati’s driver was given three years in jail in absentia.
The court earlier heard that the Filipino woman working for a private hospital in Abu Dhabi would issue forged sick leave notes to people who were brought to her by an Emirati man and his Asian driver.
Court documents stated that the nurse was illegally using medical documents having Abu Dhabi health authorities’ logo to write on the sick notes which she stamped with a doctor’s seal and signature before handing them over to various people.
Police investigations suggested that the Emirati was the one getting people who wanted sick leaves and could forward their details to the nurse to write up the sick note.
The Emirati was allegedly promoting the illegal business through posting messages about their service on social media where he could get a lot of people wanting to take leave from work.
“After talking to the customers, the man would send across the details of the worker and the number of days he or she wants to take off and send through a text message to the nurse’s phone,” a prosecutor said at a previous hearing.
“The nurse then wrote and signed the sick notes and handed them over to the Emirati’s driver for delivery.”
The group was charging each worker Dh50 for a day’s leave, Dh100 for two days and Dh300 for those wanting to rest for many days.
Authorities found out during their investigations that the group had collected about Dh500,000 from the illegal business given the fact that they were issuing over 450 forged sick notes monthly.
The three had denied charges of forging official documents throughout their trial but the court convicted them based on the evidence presented by the prosecution.
ismail@khaleejtimes.com