15-year jail term sought for man for using fake medical report

KONYA

Prosecutors are seeking up to 15 years in jail for an employee who provided a fake medical certificate with four-day sick leave to have a vacation in the southern province of Mersin, a popular tourist hotspot.

Sait U., his surname identified only by initials, informed his manager Mehmet Evrim that he was sick and could not work in July last year and sent him a medical certificate for sick leave of four days.

When Evrim seeking to visit his employee in the hospital or home was rejected by Sait U., he suspected and started to investigate the situation.

After his initial investigation, Evrim determined that his employee had never been to the Çumra State Hospital in the Central Anatolian province of Konya, where the medical report Sait U. submitted was prepared.

After Sait U. shared his photos taken on the beach in the southern province of Mersin on social media within the period the report declared, Evrim filed a criminal complaint against his employee.

Even though his first request regarding the complaint was denied by the district governor’s office, the Konya Regional Administrative Court accepted the case.

Sait U.’s employment was also terminated.

In his first statement, Sait U. said that he called a friend working at the Çumra State Hospital as a nurse on the grounds that he had COVID-19 symptoms.

Then, Sait U. asked the nurse to prepare an incapacity report “without arriving in the hospital.”

Upon the request of her friend, the nurse explained his condition to a doctor, took the report and sent it via a message.

Within the scope of the investigation, security camera recordings in the hospital were examined, and it was determined that Sait U. was not in the hospital that day.

In another report prepared by Türkiye’s telecommunication watchdog (BTK), it was revealed that the base stating signals of Sait U.’s phone was detected in Mersin in the period stated on the medical document.

The court will try Sait U., who went on vacation after receiving the report despite not having a medical excuse, with a sentence of up to 15 years in prison over the charges of “fraud” and “participating in forgery of an official document.”

The doctor and nurse who prepared the medical incapacity report without examining the patient will be tried with a prison sentence of up to 11 years on charges of “abuse of duty” and “forgery of official documents.”