A labour union chairman in Bahrain was yesterday jailed for 12 months for conning a woman who bought a laptop and a mobile phone for thousands of dinars.

The Bahraini, who owns an electronics company, was earlier convicted of selling the items, worth BD800 ($2,097), to her in instalments for BD4,000.

He, along with two co-defendants, tricked her into signing a blank piece of paper, which they later doctored to change the price of the goods.

However, the men were later acquitted of forgery and fraud by the Lower Criminal Court.

The Public Prosecution then lodged an appeal against the ruling, which was overturned by the High Criminal Appeals Court.

It sentenced all three Bahrainis to 12 months in jail.

"The appeal court trusts the victim's testimony and convicted the men of the scandal they performed to trick people into paying extra cash after the victim signed a blank document that was the bill and not the invoice as she was made to believe," said court documents explaining the ruling.

"According to an expert, the bill was forged and the victim had signed before the defendants wrote in the price of the two products, which do not match the extreme price tag."

The defendants yesterday showed up at the High Criminal Appeals Court to file an objection against the appeal court's decision and were arrested and taken to Jaw Prison.

Sources said several similar cases have been filed against the union chairman. Judges will review the defendant's objections during another hearing on February 18. - TradeArabia News Service