A clerk who worked in a local clinic was jailed after a Dubai court convicted her of forging electronic sick-leave certificates and helping workers claim paid leave they were not entitled to.
The Dubai Criminal Court also sentenced some of her accomplices in the scheme, which saw the accused issuing backdated medical certificates in exchange for cash. The defendants were convicted of offences including document forgery, breach of trust, and corporate fraud.
The case came to light after a private company began noticing a rise in sudden and recurring sick leave among some of its employees. The certificates carried digital stamps from the same clinic, prompting the company’s human resources department to conduct an internal review and report its concerns to the authorities.
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Dubai Police investigators found that a clerk at the clinic had arranged with private-sector employees to issue certificates without the required medical examinations, according to the case. In return, she received payments ranging from several hundred dirhams to more than Dh1,000 for each certificate.
The clerk used the clinic’s electronic health portal to create backdated sick-leave documents and validate them with forged digital signatures attributed to doctors. The certificates allowed employees to take time off while continuing to receive their salaries, leaving their employers to cover the cost of absences that had not been medically verified.
During the trial, the defence sought to portray the conduct as an administrative lapse or unauthorised actions by employees. The court rejected those arguments, finding that the defendants had deliberately falsified official medical records and misused the clinic’s electronic system.
The court sentenced the clerk and her accomplices to varying prison terms. Expatriate defendants were also ordered to be deported after serving their sentences, while financial penalties and restitution were imposed.
The case highlights how forged medical documents can affect employers as well as the integrity of clinic records. The court’s ruling held the defendants responsible for using the electronic system to issue certificates without medical assessments and for causing companies to accept the resulting absences as legitimate sick leave.
Source: Khaleej Times