Khaberni - The seventh authority in the Minor Criminal Court, specialized in corruption cases, convicted four defendants, including a former deputy and three others, of imprisonment for seven years. The court also ordered the defendants to pay substantial fines, in addition to reimbursing amounts totaling two million Jordanian Dinars and 200,000, which were embezzled over seven years.
According to information, the judgment was pronounced in person by the judicial authority chaired by Judge Mohammed Tarawneh and member Judge Dr. Mohammed Khawaldeh. A representative of the public prosecution also attended the session, where it was revealed that the four accused were employees in the Company Monitoring Department from 2013 to 2020. One of them was serving as the financial and administrative manager, while another was a financial manager, and two of the employees were involved in programming the department's financial systems. The accused exploited their positions to manipulate financial receipts and delete amounts from the computerized system, enabling them to embezzle this large amount.
The details reveal that one of the accused, who served as the treasurer, received amounts from reviewers in exchange for services provided by the department, while the others manipulated the computerized system by entering these amounts as "zero" after showing them as canceled. In reality, however, these funds were illegally seized for their benefit.
In addition, it turned out that the accused issued forged financial receipts with lesser amounts than those collected by the treasurer from the reviewers. After entering the forged data into the system and completing the fictitious cancellation, they proceeded to delete all records from the system entirely.
The incident's details were discovered by chance when a lawyer paid a thousand Dinars to register a company and received an authenticated financial receipt. When trying to enter her data into the computerized system, a technical issue appeared that prevented her from completing the process ("block"). Consequently, the lawyer reviewed the department's manager with the payment receipt, leading to a broad investigation that uncovered the illegal operations.
Internal committees were formed to investigate and monitor the violations and the embezzled amounts, after which the entire case was referred to the public prosecutor of the Integrity and Anti-Corruption Authority, which in turn transferred the case to the Minor Criminal Court for judgment.
The public prosecutor charged the suspects with embezzlement and interfering therein. They were sentenced to temporary imprisonment for seven years along with fines and compensation equal to twice the embezzled amounts. Notably, two of them are still detained to date, and the judgment is subject to appeal.
It is worth mentioning that the public prosecutor of the Integrity and Anti-Corruption Authority had ordered three years ago the detention of the accused for 15 days as a precautionary measure, and imposed a travel ban on them as well as a seizure of the movable and immovable properties of the transferred deputy. The charges targeted at them varied among embezzlement by using forgery, interference in embezzlement felony, and unauthorized system access.
The case details go back four years when security and judicial authorities discovered the extended embezzlement operation, showing that the four accused exploited their roles as managers and programmers and treasurers in the Company Monitoring Department to manipulate the financial system for transferring the embezzled amounts to themselves.
The seventh authority of the Minor Criminal Court, in cooperation with the Integrity and Anti-Corruption Authority, made significant efforts to gather the necessary evidence. Judicial teams enlisted experts, witnesses, and technicians to collect as much information as possible about the case and details of the embezzlement.
The Integrity and Anti-Corruption Authority affirms its continued pursuit of all forms of corruption and assault on public funds, even if the crimes occurred in previous years, achieving the principle of holding those involved accountable and safeguarding state funds.
