A 32-YEAR-old Lebanese man was yesterday sentenced to four months in jail for forging documents in an attempt to swindle $69,000.
From the dock, Antonio Ibrahim, dressed in smart clothes, just stared at the judge as the decision was read out.
He looked eager to get it over with and appeared unconcerned by the sentence.
Ibrahim was arrested outside his house last month as he was about to leave for the airport.
When confronted by police, he said: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Ibrahim was charged with forging a bank document and attempting to defraud his compatriot, Antoine Srour out of $69,000.
During the trial, Srour, a permanent resident of Cyprus who owns an offshore company, told the court he had agreed to employ Ibrahim on a trial basis in the marketing department of his business.
Four days later, on January 19, Srour sacked Ibrahim because he was unsuitable for the job.
But 10 days later Ibrahim faxed the bank where Srour kept his company’s account, and ordered the transfer of $69,000 into his own account, which he had opened with the same branch.
The order even carried the security code and signature necessary for such transactions, which Ibrahim stole from the company along with the company letterhead.
But what Ibrahim did not know was that the code changed every day, and an employee duly spotted that the code did not match the current one.
The employee called to confirm the transaction, but an astonished Srour informed him that he had not issued such an order.
Srour notified the police who moved swiftly and arrested Ibrahim before he left the island.
A search of his luggage and flat found a fax machine, two company stamps, and the prototype of the forged document.
Ibrahim pleaded guilty but cited personal conditions and despair pushing him to the crime.
At some point during the trial he said he had been beaten badly in Lebanon, removing a bridge of four teeth in court to prove his point.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
