The Court of Cassation in Makkah will next week begin reviewing the verdict given by the District Court in Jeddah in the case of three security company employees responsible for replenishing ATM machines who managed to lose SR1.4 million. The original verdict sentenced two of the plaintiffs to pay back the lost sum to the company, and dismissed claims against the third defendant who drove the vehicle transporting the money as he had reportedly not signed papers proving that the money had been received. Now the defendants say there was a conspiracy against them and point the finger at officials from the security company. The incident occurred nine months ago when the company charged two new employees with the replenishment of nine automatic telling machines belonging to a local bank in different locations in Jeddah. They were accompanied by the third defendant, the driver of the security vehicle. While stopping to fill one of the ATM machines, all three descended from the vehicle, including the driver, constituting a violation of regulatory procedures. When they returned to the vehicle they found that three cases of monies returned unused from ATM machines had gone missing. The employees then informed the company of the loss, and a subsequent search failed to locate the cases. Authorities were only informed of the event 12 hours after they were first noticed missing, something which the defendants point to as the most significant aspect of the case. The company then asked authorities to open an investigation into the role of the accused and the case was transferred to the District Court which issued a verdict open to appeal. The defendants now await the court session scheduled for next week, claiming their innocence and asking for the sentence to be overruled. They are also demanding a reinvestigation, claiming signs of a plot against them by some parties who “exploited their lack of work experience”. They say that the investigation ignored what they describe as conclusive evidence from security camera recordings from inside the armored security vehicle and at ATM points. The defendants also demand that investigations look into the role of some company officials and note that one of them tendered his resignation suspiciously soon after the incident, and further point out that the exact value of the missing money could not have been known when it first went missing, and could only have been known through bank investigations, yet company officials announced the sum to be SR1.4 million without consulting records. – Okaz/SG __
