Qatari woman forced to spend 35 days in jail after being wrongly accused

A lower court has ordered a local telecom company to pay QR700,000 ($192,228) in damages to a Qatari woman employee for wrongly accusing her of embezzling QR24m, causing her trauma and harming her reputation.

It also asked the firm to pay court expenses to the employee who was acquitted after a panel of audit and accounting experts appointed by the court ruled that she was innocent.

The employee handled the company's cash and one day QR24m was found missing from the accounts. The firm referred the matter to the Public Prosecution which filed charges and a trial began.

Witnesses, who were colleagues of the accused, said in their depositions that she was particular about the accounting procedures and noted all cash transactions meticulously.

She prepared a daily report of the transactions she handled, so it was unlikely that a discrepancy of QR24m would occur due to her fault, said the witnesses, The Peninsula reported.

The incident occurred last May.

The court appointed a panel of independent experts, understandably from accounting and audit professions, and they concluded that the accounts were perfect and no money was embezzled.

It emerged that the employee who reported that there was a deficit of QR24m was not in-charge of accounting and knew little about it.

The case against the employee was filed by the company without a thorough audit of its accounts. While the matter was under investigation and later went to the court, the accused was suspended despite having pleaded innocent.

She spent 35 days in jail, having been remanded in judicial custody, according to The Peninsula.

Her lawyer, Naif Al Nema, demanded from the court that she be paid damages to the tune of QR20m by the firm for causing her trauma, harming her reputation and making her spend time in jail for no fault of hers.